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Re: We had a fight » fallsfall

Posted by All Done on April 8, 2005, at 15:39:21

In reply to Re: We had a fight » All Done, posted by fallsfall on April 7, 2005, at 7:51:39

> I'm sorry, Alldone..........
>
> My gut reaction is that you need to follow this through to completion. That you need to keep pushing your view (which seems right to me, by the way). That you need to explain to him why his procrastination and disregard of the contract he signed bothers you.

That's what my gut is saying, too. It's not even just his disregard of the contract anymore. I feel like he has no respect for my knowledge or, in general, for me. If he's so certain he's right, why won't he confirm that for me by talking to the insurance company? Doesn't it matter to him that he might be making an error that is negatively affecting me? He's reminding me a lot of my mom and that is enough therapy fodder for a lifetime. :(

> My therapist and I have agreed that my superego is much stronger than his. But I accept that his is probably reasonable. He has said that I have enough superego for both of us... We were able to come to agreement about the goal we were working toward (him getting "enough" money, me getting as much from the insurance company as possible - and my requirement that everything *I* do be by the book). I did have to allow that he had the right to choose to be less "ethical" (I hate to use that word, it is more that I need to follow the letter of the law, where he is OK with following the spirit of the law) - it was important for us to work out that his requirements *were* different from mine, and that neither of us had the "right" to force our requirements on the other. But that we needed to find a solution that would meet both of our needs. The process of working through that with him taught me about myself, about how other people can be, and about compromise. Excruciating, but valuable.

**How could anyone's requirements not include knowing what's the correct way, though? I mean, I understand if there are two correct ways of doing something, we may choose different ways, but to me, this is like 2 + 2. It only equals 4 (and you, falls, can't tell me it doesn't ;)). Do I have to learn to accept that he thinks it's 5 only because he won't look in the d*mn book for the answer?

> Of course, you may (when all is said and done) find out that your therapist has "morals" that you can't live with. But you've been with him for a while, right? And in general, he seems pretty good, right?

This is what I'm afraid of. I'm almost at 2 years with him and yes, in general is seems better than pretty good, to me.

> That period of time with my therapist was really, really, really tough. Dinah calls it "fighting to relationship". It is very much like that.

I know. I thought about Dinah's expression when we were in the midst of arguing and it helped me to calm down a bit. I know there's something to benefit from here and, oddly enough, I think it's the connection I've felt has been missing for a little while.

> It is OK to be angry at him - for things like not calling the insurance company when he said he would. He deserves that. It was very hard for me to stand up for my beliefs against my therapist - I'm used to having him tell me what I'm doing that is "not helpful", and accepting what he says. But in this case, there were things that I *knew* were important (i.e. contracts) and I wasn't willing to compromise my values - I wasn't willing to purposefully do something that I knew was wrong. So we tried to figure out what was really important to each of us and were able to find a way to make us both happy.

See above** :).

> Stick with it. Like you said before, there are an awful lot of topics rolled up into this issue. It is NOT comfortable, but I think that it will be beneficial in the end.
>
> IM me if you want.

Thanks, falls. I know there's all kinds of interesting stuff inside me that's coming out because of this. I just wish we could get the details ironed out and then we can discuss how it made me feel to our little hearts content.

Take care,
Laurie


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poster:All Done thread:481011
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050329/msgs/481687.html