I think I’m emotionally attached to my therapist and I’m embarrassed even typing that. Before anybody assumes something inappropriate happened, it didn’t. She has never crossed a line. She has never flirted with me. She’s professional, kind, consistent, and probably treats dozens of clients exactly the same way.

The problem is me. I started therapy after a rough period where my marriage, work and family were all falling apart at once, and for the first time in my life there was one person I could talk to without worrying about how my feelings affected them.

I didn’t have to make things sound smaller so they wouldn’t panic, or make them funnier so nobody got uncomfortable. She remembered little details I forgot I had told her. She noticed when I was dodging something. She said things that made me feel understood in a way I honestly don’t feel understood anywhere else.

Then I started thinking about sessions during the week. Not sexually, not even romantically exactly, but I’d catch myself having imaginary conversations with her in my head when something happened. I would think, “I can’t wait to tell her about this.” If she went on vacation and we skipped a week, I felt weirdly abandoned even though I knew how ridiculous that was.

One day she mentioned casually that she was married and I felt this tiny drop in my stomach, and that was when I realized this had gotten more complicated than I wanted to admit. The most uncomfortable part is that I know enough about therapy now to understand attachment like this can happen, and that almost makes it worse because I can analyze myself while still feeling it.

I haven’t told her because I’m terrified she’ll change how she talks to me or decide I need another therapist. I don’t want to date her. I don’t want to ruin her marriage. I don’t even think I know her as a real person. I know the version of her that exists in a room designed to focus entirely on me, which obviously isn’t how normal relationships work.

But there’s something brutal about realizing the safest relationship in your life is one you pay for fifty minutes at a time.