EA account already linked to the correct steam account?

I purchased and installed SIMS 4 onto my PC through STEAM.  When I try to open the game, from the desktop or from STEAM, it takes me to log in to EA.   But it says:

"We found one or more linked accounts.   The EA account for (my email) is already linked to the following Steam account:  (my user ID)   You can switch your steam account or continue with a different EA account."

But I don't want to use a different account, I want to use the email and user name that it is listed in the error message, that email and user ID is the one with SIMS 4 linked to it.   The email and user ID are correct, so why can't I open the game?  Already talked to EA help chat for 1.5 hours, they said to post it to the forum they were out of ideas.  I tried reinstalling sims and EA app, and cleared the cache on the EA app, and restarting the computer.  That's all they had for me.