posessing those you love

[young46]

Has anyone else loved someone so much that they didn't love anyone else? There is no one I say "I love you" to. Not my husband or my family. This person that I love, my therapist can handle it - he's very professional, but today he told me that I wanted to "Posses him". It's true. I don't him to have any other clients. I want to be the most unique person in his life. I want him to always be available to me. Very unrealistic cognitively, but emotions often control my actions.

[jdtm]

Has anyone else loved someone so much that they didn't love anyone else?

This is not love; this is obsession.  Love is freeing and giving; obsession is binding and taking.  Love is selfless; obsession is selfish.  Love is mature and beautiful; obsession is childish and cruel.  Perhaps it might be wise to seek out another therapist.

[young46]

Can't seek out another therapist. I'd rather die first. By the way I meant to say he does have other clients - though I wish I was the only one. I know this is not true love - but I have a psychiatrist as well and she knows my feelings about my therapist - she always tells me I need more friends, which is true since I only have 2.

[awkwardangel]

I know exactly how you feel.  The thought of my therapist liking one of his other clients more than me, or of him feeling any kind of warmth or liking to another patient breaks my heart.  I just can't deal with it, so I dont think about it. He does know I have strong positive transference feelings towards him (which he accepts and understands), but I know this isn't love.  My therapist told me the same- that I need to build more of a life for myself to distract from my feelings for him.  Difficult tho.

[ginger899]

I can completely understand why you feel such love for your therapist. He is someone who not only has the time to give to you but shows great interest in YOU, and your deeper self. Other people must seem rather mundane and ordinary in comparison. Your therapist shows what you think is 'love'. Of course he does. It is a very loving act, to desire to help someone, and to get to know their innermost Being. Deep down, beyond your control, you are responding to that, and your feelings are telling you what you feel back for this person is LOVE.
In a way I suppose it is.....but realistically it isn't.

This person you must always remember is getting paid for the work he does. It's his job. He cares about his clients I'm sure, and would do whatever he could, within that hour of therapy, or whatever time, to help them.  But he doesn't love them. Not the way he loves his family, for example, or his wife, or his mother.

So remember that. Honour your gratefulness to him, honour the fact that you have a heart, you can feel what you believe is love. But that poor husband of yours, he senses your love has gone cool towards him I'm sure. He won't say anything. He won't want to hurt you. The therapist wouldn't hold you in the night when you are feeling down. He wouldn't want to. He wouldn't be there. He won't make breakfast for you, or take out the trash for you because you're tired, or go for a walk with you....Your husband will. That's love. Love isn't a feeling. It's a way of life.