Husband died, utterly besotted and obsessed with my bereavement therapist.

[Iknowthisisridiculousbut]

Sorry about the name change.
This is embarrassing, excruciating and taking over all my thoughts. After losing my husband this year l started bereavement therapy.
l am now completely obsessed by this therapist. He’s a great therapist but also handsome, intelligent, empathetic and in touch with his emotions. I have fallen head over heels for him. His presence in my head has all but erased my thoughts for my husband.
I don’t even feel like l am mourning him such is the amount of daydreaming and fantasising l do . It’s painful. Like the worst teenage crush.
l know l can never have him, l know l am being ridiculous. Is this my brains devious way of distracting me from grief ?
What can l do ? It is just too shameful to tell him and talk it out.
Should l leave the therapy ?

This also happened to me, I only saw the counsellor for a few months but couldn’t get over it for a long time afterwards. It was incredibly distressing and painful I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I think mine was a bad case of transference.
It was that bad it took several years to stop missing him with the help of another counsellor.
I think it can be good to have an final session so that’s it’s not just left unended and you are brave to have told him, definitely best to have faced what’s happened and try and move on.

Well done - you can now move on to seek appropriate help elsewhere, be it counselling or practical actions.

We do find ways of dealing with loss - the important thing to remember is that you never totally shake it off or "move on", but you do learn to incorporate your grief into your life and to walk alongside it with equanimity. It is not an easy road, and you will be tripped up many times along the way, so it is important that when these trips happen you do not despair and think that this is how it will always be, but pick yourself up and plod on.

I wish you well and hope that over the months and years you will find ways to live with your grief.

It’s absolutely you decision to not see him again. If you are uncomfortable then of course please find someone else.

However I’d just like to put an opposing view about him asking to see you for another session to talk about it, though may sound inappropriate, is exactly what a good therapist should do. That in itself is not a warning sign.

First, endings are really important in the therapeutic world and a good therapist will always push to have one.

secondly, this kind of romantic transference is very common and any therapist worth their salt won’t be shocked and can work with it. It sounds strange but in discussing this with a trusted therapist a lot of work can happen. Theorists know how to use this situation as something to help growth.

Again please don’t this trying to get you to do anything you don’t want to. Your situation is uniquely your own. I just wanted to write it here incase anyone else reading this has similar feelings for their therapist.

Is this my brains devious way of distracting me from grief

Absolutely yes. I lost DH 18 months ago and in the first weeks and months I was like a woman possessed, drooling over every man I saw and persuading myself that I was better off single with all this opportunity around me.