What's my motivation?

Here's a thorny question: At our counselling session I am spouting off about how painful it is for me when T goes off on dates. How difficult I find the idea of him being intimate in a meaningful way with other people. How much it hurts to imagine him being excited about, kissing and having sex with other women who he is attached to. I can't stop going on about it. D says, What do you get out of feeling like that?


I don't know, I say. I have no idea. The opportunity to be horrible to T and punish him for it? I get nothing nice from it.

I say, Are you getting transactional on me? T doesn't understand so I explain, It's the idea that you 'get' something from every situation you create. I don't have to feel like this so I must be getting something from it on some level, even if it's subconscious.

T says maybe you're recreating your feelings of grief and unrequited love? I hate this idea so much that I have to at least entertain the idea that there might be something in it. T says maybe unrequited love is more exciting and perfect than real love. I'm not sure about that. I don't rate T's powers of interpretation and analysis too highly if I'm honest.

I mean, my interpretation of events is so different from T's. Why can't I trust him and take his word for it, if nothing else?

Grief, loss, unrequited love, the feeling I get when I imagine T off on solo adventures. The only thing I can say with any certainty that they have in common is that they are not my choice and they are situations that are out of my control.