Posted by Tamar on April 25, 2006, at 20:30:02
In reply to Pls read: hubby goes to female T/T is your hubby, posted by orchid on April 19, 2006, at 13:11:37
I think this is never going to be an easy thing to discuss!
I’m not sure how I’d feel if my husband were a therapist, but I do know that he sometimes has close emotional relationships with the women he works with. And as long as those relationships are not a threat to my marriage I don’t feel jealous. If I ever thought there was any danger to my marriage I’d probably be quite upset! But I know for a fact that my husband is attracted to some of his female friends and colleagues. And I know that some of them are attracted to him. It doesn’t mean he wants to be unfaithful; it doesn’t mean they want to take him away from me. It’s just the way biology works. And also: wishing to be someone’s lover is a completely different thing from acting on that wish (and usually the fantasy is much better than the reality!).
I wouldn’t worry too much about my husband going to a female therapist because I’ve read that transference tends to work rather differently when the woman is the therapist and the man is the client.
I think it’s important to remember the symbolic aspect of many of those feelings. That’s why they’re healthy: they tell you something about what you’re missing in life. If I love my therapist because I imagine he’s romantic and emotionally articulate, then maybe I feel a lack of romance and emotional connectedness in my marriage. I can’t get what I want from my therapist but he can help me try to figure out how to live with what I’ve got, or how to make changes to make my relationship better.
I don’t think you owe anyone an apology. Your feelings for your therapist are necessary in order for you to be able to explore the possibilities of change in your life. Your feelings don’t harm your therapist or his wife, and they don’t harm your husband. In fact, as you are able to work through them, you may find that the experience actually improves your marriage by helping you to understand better what you want from your relationship.
And (since a certain previous discussion has already been alluded to) I still feel quite strongly about some of the ideas that came up in one woman cine’s thread. And I still believe (as I said in that thread) that it’s not helpful for clients to worry about the feelings of their therapist’s partner. The therapeutic boundaries are supposed to keep the relationship from developing into something more conventionally sexualised, and the advantage is that it should be possible to be much more open than in normal social situations. Well, that’s my two cents anyway.
I hope you won’t beat yourself up too much about your feelings for your therapist. If you can work with them instead of against them you might find them ultimately useful.
Tamar
poster:Tamar
thread:634800
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060422/msgs/637043.html