AIBU to stop therapy after learning my therapist’s husband is Reform?

[CanyonRider]

I live in a small town. I started having therapy maybe a year ago. I feel it’s been working for me and I like my therapist. However I realised today that she is (very very recently) married to a man who recently stood and won as a reform councillor in our local election. I detest reform. I’m married to an immigrant (EU citizen) and am delighted that my kids are dual nationals and have the option of travelling, working and living in the EU should they desire. I’m also very pro the transition to green energy. I have solar and drive an EV. Finally I cannot stand Farage and the political grift embodied by people like him and Jenrick and am dismayed by the harms caused by Brexit.

My therapist is also an EU national and is here under indefinite leave to remain - as is my wife.
Read a few interviews with her husband today and he spouts the usual anti EU, anti immigration, anti green transition rhetoric you’d expect from Reform. I don’t feel comfortable continuing therapy with someone who’s married to a reform politician, and am very surprised that she is comfortable with his views and by extension those of Farage.

Am I overreacting?

No. It would not be lawful to dismiss you from your job because your partner flies flags. If this happened to you, you could fight your case at ET if you're in the UK, and you would win. And rightfully so.
However, it entirely lawful for a person to choose not to purchase the services of a therapist who's husband is a Reform Councillor.

If they and their supporters are having to argue vociferously that it isn't a party by and for bigots and ignorant fools, there's a kind of inevitability to everyone's growing realisation that that's exactly what they are 😂😂

Some things are crossing a line. Being a Reform Councillor crosses a very big one for me.
I would not choose to associate with that person, nor their family. Let alone pay for their expertise. Views which a few years ago were held by a tiny minority are now to be lauded and praised. It's disgusting.

The point is, surely, that the therapy may well stop working in these circumstances. Therapy involves allowing a therapist to know an awful lot about you and influence your life, and requires a high degree of trust In the therapist. If that trust is damaged, then the therapy won't work anyway, and I would struggle to trust someone who has shown such poor judgment as to align herself with a Reform politician.

Do you agree with things like limiting women's rights and selling off the NHS? If your husband agrees with these things, he's clearly not left-leaning.

So you haven't seen the posts on here from women worried that their husbands went on the reform marches and what to do? It really doesn't matter what the content is of judging a woman for her husband's choices, it is the process of speculating and making up all sorts of stories about her and then judging and firing her that is highly problematic. Also everyone is assuming op is a woman for some reason but op could be a man. So you are happy for a man to fire a woman on the basis of her husband's choices because you think you know the circumstances of their marriage and divorce.

Is your fiancé a Reform councillor? And are you self-employed?

Yes, I think most Reform voters are racist. And those who aren't racist are just too stupid to understand what they're voting for. Oh, and I guess there might be a few cr*pto billionaires wanting to exploit other people's racism for their own financial gain.

If Reform voters find that insulting...well, perhaps they should think about why so many non-Reform voters perceive them that way.

But the therapist married this man recently, this ain’t a couple who’ve been married 20+ years and he’s drifted rightward or fallen down internet rabbit holes etc, this is someone who was a member of the reform party and active enough in the reform party to be a potential candidate for election for them and while that was going on, the therapist married him.

id have sympathy with someone who’d married someone who’d changed, but to marry someone knowing their politics means that even if you don’t completely share all their views, you don’t find them abhorrent.

it’s a reasonable conclusion the therapist shares the views of the company she chooses to keep.

3 cases, vs 15 plus the multiple from the prior elections doesn’t really compare. But you will choose your own evidence.

I haven’t shifted on anything - I pointed out the implication of your words, and you seem not to like them when they come from someone else. If people are voting for a party because they think people don’t like them, that’s irrational. I don’t believe that’s what people are voting for Reform, but clearly you do as you’ve repeated it throughout the thread.

Those are not policies, they are statements. How do reform plan to increase domestic energy production? What does tougher on crime mean - more police, longer sentences, different sentences, make more things a crime? Lower taxes ‘where possible’? What are the possible conditions that will need to be met to lower taxes?

For me, rough around the edges isn’t something I’d vote for. People are welcome to, but it’s a bit embarrassing to have no clarity after so long and if people are comfortable with that it does say something about their expectations and understanding of government.

Anyway, the point of the thread is about choice. OP has made the choice that this therapist is not for her. Would you choose a therapist with different values to you? Say, if the partner of the school you’ve complained about was a therapist, you’d continue to see them? I’d guess not and that would be reasonable.

The therapist won't be 'fired'. She is not the OPs employee. She is a service provider that the OP is at liberty to patronise with her custom or not.
I know it sounds more dramatic and frames the therapist as a victim if you use 'fired', and gives you the opportunity to frame us as heading for a dystopia where women's employment is at risk, but its not an accurate description of the situation.
The therapist is no more 'fired' than your hairdresser would be if you decided to go elsewhere for whatever reason you chose.

I don’t know what high tax paying has to do with it, but I think if you look at the data the ‘professional high tax paying Reform voter’ is vanishingly rare.

What a delight you are then, unable to treat others with different political opinions with respect.

For the recent local elections after I had voted for all the Tory candidates my final throwaway vote was for reform.

She is exercising consumer choice.
Capitalism allows that.
She is entitled to change therapist for any or no reason. Not just reasons you like.

Explain limiting women's rights? Reform are interested in the French system where it's insurance based but free to those who can't afford it. Their health system is well known to be efficient. What's the difference between paying a premium or Labour putting our taxes up to pay for the NHS?

I agree. Judging someone based on who they vote for is abhorrent IMO. I have friends across the political spectrum who are all intelligent and nice people. And I like to think it also ensures I am not living in a echo chamber.

Therapy is a lot of money and you need to feel comfortable and safe. Honesty is key.Could you raise it with her. Explain your concerns and take it from there. She may be equally as aghast- or not. In which case I’d definitely walk. Reform candidates have made it clear they don’t believe in MH difficulties, SEND, the NHS or anything else that involves need.

Then why tell everyone else about it? Just cancel. I guess that doesn't have the same smugness about it.

This is a real question.

Worryingly I’d assume the therapist has similar views to her hudband. How could such polar opposites be married?

Nigel Farage once called Enoch Powell his "political hero" in 2008, when he was a UKIP politician. Of the 20+ reports that he was virulently racist and anti-Semitic to Jewish kids at school, making a hissing noise and talking about gassing them, he said he "never directly racially abused anyone" (so indirect racism? Nice) and it was "not racism, it was banter"

At the same time he goes to bat for all his racist councillors and oh that comment obviously wasn't okay but...hmm. I wonder how anyone could possibly come away thinking this man's political party is racist?

So many people are looking at individual personalities and failing to see the wood for the trees.

Nice, intelligent people can still vote a cruel regime into power.

That's between the therapist and her husband alone. I hope she gets wind of this thread and is proactive.

I am neither a delight nor a monster. I am first and foremost a human being, as are those demonised and despised by Farage and his ilk.

No, I don't respect racists. Never have, never will.

In my area, the county council just cancelled a debate on water security to discuss bookending meetings with the Lord’s Prayer and the national anthem.

The French system is a good one, but if you think Reform have the skills or sustained interest to transition us to a different healthcare model, I have a bridge to sell you.