Thursday, April 24, 2014

What to talk about?

I've arranged it with my counselor that I see her once a month, at this point.  That doesn't sound like a lot, and it's not.  On the other hand, what exactly am I working on?  Relationship issues, I think ... with Debbie (but she's out of the picture) or with the boys (who are away at boarding school) or with some hypothetical future romantic partner (but she, if she exists, is still pretty hypothetical).  In other words, none of these areas is one where I'm going to get a lot of feedback, and it's not clear what progress I can make in a vacuum.  On the other hand I didn't want to drop her completely.  So we're checking in with each other once a month.

Tonight's the night for April.  What do I want to talk about with her?

One great advantage I have in figuring this out -- I think -- is that I've been doing all this writing in April.  So what is it that has been on my mind?

Looking over my list of posts in April, I see a few recurring themes:
  • There is the breakup with Debbie: here, here, here, here, and here.
  • There are the wider-ranging posts where I try to analyze my thoughts, feelings, or behaviors in relationships past, inspired by the breakup with Debbie or other events in my past: here, here, here, and here
  • There are stories about my past with Wife: here, here, here, here, and I suppose I can include this one about the present day.
  • There are snapshots of what I'm doing or thinking about concretely that minute: I was going to include links, but I suppose if you take this topic generally enough it includes all the others, so why bother?
But which of these would be useful?

Probably the most useful ones are these:
So those are what I'll lead with.  And we'll see where the conversation goes from there .... 

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