Posted by Dinah on April 7, 2008, at 9:49:08
When I was choosing my rock for my therapist, I asked for my husband's help. He chose the ones with major cracks in them. :) Thanks, dear.
But he seemed sort of crabby, and I asked if he were jealous of my therapist. To my surprise, he said yes. But he wouldn't say much else on the topic. My husband doesn't like talking about feelings all that much.
I know my husband has been jealous of two of my dogs over the years, and rightly so I might add. I doted on those dogs, loved to cuddle them and shower them with kisses, missed them when I was apart for an hour, etc. I often said I'd have married one of them if it were legal. (A girl dog. No sexual overtones.) In short, I did give them some of what was due a husband.
But I don't give my therapist anything due a husband. A parent maybe, but not a husband. And it has always been my understanding that my husband sees my therapist as a protection from me. From my craziness and overemotionalness, from my desire to speak on topics concerning emotion. My husband would rather be strapped down and forced to listen to endless political advertisements than engage in a conversation about emotions. Well, maybe not that. But still.
I talked to my therapist about it, and asked him if I should pursue it further. My therapist apparently thought I should, since he referred to my not doing so as sweeping it under the rug. I told him both my husband and my mother had thought he was a good looking man. And my mother used to say that this was the reason I stayed in therapy. But that while of course he was a good looking man, I had never really seen him that way. And that my response to both of them was that if he had looked like Dr. Drew I'd have never entered therapy with him. Because Dr. Drew was my type. My therapist said he really liked Dr. Drew too, and I asked if he was his type too. :) He said that he thought Dr. Drew was a good looking man, and liked his approach. lol. (I didn't tell my therapist this, but when my husband saw my therapist a couple of years ago, he thought he really wasn't as good looking as he remembered.) And mentioned that my husband was not that much unlike Dr. Drew in type. I said I thought I might be defensive, and my therapist agreed I might be. What I meant was that I thought I might feel like I should stop therapy. And I had no desire or intention to do that.
So I brought it up with my husband again, and asked if he meant he was jealous of my therapist as a man, or like he was of my dogs. And he said something like that he was just sorry that I was so in need of help, and that he wasn't able to give it to me. It's hard to describe but it sounded vaguely insulting to me. But my husband tends to say vaguely insulting things to me, so that was no big deal.
I find this bothers me. My husband admits that he doesn't in any way want me to stop seeing my therapist, and that he doesn't want to have to talk to me about the things my therapist talks to me about. And I know that I'm not sexually or romantically attracted to my therapist. He is very tall and very large, and he makes me feel like I used to when I was able to fit both my feet in one of Daddy's shoes. But that's not what I'm attracted to in a man, just in a therapist/mommy/daddy.
And as I've often said, I'm well aware that outside therapy I would never have chosen my therapist as a friend. We have very different interests and values.
My husband knows that I'm not sexually interested in my therapist. He knows me well enough to know I'm not a particularly sexual person, and wouldn't even understand that sort of attraction to another man, much less act on it.
Still, I kind of wish I didn't know how my husband felt. And I feel sort of uncomfortable with the whole thing. I wouldn't hurt my husband for the world. I love him dearly. He has integrity, which I find the sexiest quality in a man. He is funny, which is also darn attractive. But he's also part of the reason I need therapy. In so many ways he's a wonderful husband to me, and has the complementary qualities that make our marriage successful. But he's hypercritical of everyone, including himself. He'd be the first to admit that and is in fact rather proud of it. And he's a pillar of crackling electricity that occasionally sends off sparks.
I'm not sure why I'm writing this. But I'm thinking maybe it did have something to do with my anniversary session falling a bit flat.
poster:Dinah
thread:822011
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080405/msgs/822011.html