What popped into my head reading your last session and the fears about arbitrariness in response and him taking things away is how young those fears sound. I wondered if you were an only child, because for some reason this pings for me as perhaps more profound for only children. When you have siblings, I think you have an "outsider" perspective about how the parent/child relationship changes naturally as children "achieve" developmental stages, like pottying, weaning, and so on including lots of independent things like dressing, feeding, reading by themselves . . . .

Less from my childhood, but more from my son's, who is an only child. We were quite "attachment" oriented in practice without buying into the theory wholesale. It was clear to me that he perceived certain stages of independence with some fears, like what will it mean that mom and dad won't help me with ___ anymore? I think he associated, and at almost adult age still does, doing things for him as love, and if those were no longer done, then the love was draining away. At some point he expressed that he was afraid to read by himself because then we wouldn't read to him anymore.

I've never read the book, but many people I know talk about "love languages" and about what love (could just as easy be support or caring) means. Maybe it was mentioned in your marriage counseling. Just wondering if your feelings and fears about emailing and what not are related to something in the neighborhood of this idea.