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?

I have 3 boys (2 still teenagers) and a teenage daughter. They have loads of mates who I know really well. I listen to them banter with each other in the house, online when they think we can't hear, and when they were younger, I used to monitor their phones a lot. All that time, I only once heard any of their friends say anything racist (in fact my son brought it to me as he was shocked). The kid was 10 years old and all the rest to their friends, called him out on it, he lost his phone for a month, school got involved and he lost friends over it.
Maybe it's different because we live in a very multicultural area.And half their mates aren't white.
Anyway I stand by the fact that you can't have racist "banter" you just have racism.

Third and last time I am posting this. Seeing how Mumsnetters can organise around DV issues and women's rights, I pray that some at least will be organising French Resistance or Underground Railroad style.

Praying that "oh dear" and pouring a glass of wine while rewatching The Sound of Music or The Diary of Anne Frank will not be the response.

Sisters, please do not wait to be 'surprised'.

YANBU. If you feel uncomfortable with a therapist (doesn't matter what the reason is) then you aren't going to get much out of the therapy. Better to find someone you feel comfortable with.

Sorry @allsorts That was meant for @allisnotlost1 I know exactly what fascism is, where it started and how it's ended up. You disagree? Fine.

Save her client anymore mental anguish and suggest she finds another therapist.

But they've been ahead of all the polls in the past year or so.

Untrue.
Bold statements and then waiting for others to factfind and exhaust themselves.
Energy vampire political tactics.
So far so MAGA.

^

If you are not comfortable with your therapist because of her associations then what are you going to gain from therapy.

You are not in therapy to broaden your horizons and challenge views you have on people who are supportive of a party that is lead by a racist, that stirs racism and hate who has very dubious means of gaining wealth. If this was part of your therapy then crack on but I am guessing it isn't

Have you read about the Minnesota honey trap?

Therapy is different though, because therapy deals with right and wrong, morality, behaviour, processing adverse experiences (potentially themes like ostracization, family separation, refugee experiences) etc. A therapist being sympathetic to a xenophobic racist (in this case her husband) is likely to indicate a bias against supporting people through some of those issues.

Dentists and physios deal with teeth and body parts - it's not ideal if they have some issues with their moral compass but not a showstopper in the same way.

Interested in all the posters expressing faux concern about the impact on the female therapist of people being concerned about her having a racist husband.

Wonder why that faux concern for womens' autonomy sounds familiar 🤔

We can all say we’ll do whatever we want. Tell me how will Reform ‘bring down energy costs? Do you know why our energy costs are higher than equivalent countries?*

*Clue: it’s not green levies and carbon taxes.

Oh, they are politically left-leaning alright - they live in a fantastic, unreal world, their own world, not available to us - take GPs, for instance - they are private partnerships when it comes to profits and work, yet they are paid by the taxpayer. So they can decide on their working hours, salaries, profits (which are increased by not sending patients to specialist consultants, thus conserving the money pot for themselves) - they operate like private businesses. Yet they are totally free of the pressures of private business - don't have to find clients, don't have to worry about how clients will pay, don't have to work, like dogs, with insurance companies, etc. because the state, taxpayer, will find them clients and will pay for each and every client. Why not be left-leaning? Oh, yes, and the state first educates them for free (please don't tell me about home tuition fees - those pathetic fees don't cover anything, it is foreign students who pay real tuition fees) trains them for free to become a consultant. Oh, wait, not for free - the state PAYS them to train to become a consultant. And then consultants are able to work at the same time on the NHS and privately - conflict of interest, much? And create queues on the NHS by doing the bit (in the same speciality!!!!) on the side.

Of course they are left-leaning - they live in a made-up world!

If you’ve raised teenagers who use ‘racial banter’ then well done, you’ve raised racist teenagers. My brother was racially abused by children at primary school, he was 5. He stopped going to school for the best part of a year and tried to scrub himself white, was that just banter? He should shrug it off, I’m sure those kids grew up to be decent people. Except they didn’t, and two of them are now in prison for a racially motivated murder.

Jesus - you can find a new therapist for whatever reason - why do you think we should have an opinion - a bunch of random strangers? Or is this just to bash reform? Come on OP - at lease find a different angle! (i am a foreigner as well before you accuse me of being some racist)

Racial banter! I think that is just racism.

I thought I had made myself abundantly clear but apparently I haven't so I will try again.

Reform should absolutely be held to account

There is plenty wrong with their policies

They have plenty of people in the party who should not be

As they are leading the polls, they need and deserve even greater scrutiny than other parties (though so do the Greens) and I very much welcome it

I'm not voting for them

The way we hold them to account is by clearly and intelligently criticising their policies, manifestos and actions.

It is not by shouting Nazi, Far Right and race supremacy. Because those accusations are demonstrably false and it gives Reform's defenders - not me - the ammunition needed to dismiss those emotional attacks

When what is actually needed is clear firm, not emotional, critiques of their position.

Does that make sense?

I am appealing for a higher quality of political debate because otherwise we really are in trouble.

I would add however there is no party on the left that has a clear unequivocally supportive stance on female rights to safety, privacy and dignity in single sex spaces. And that worries me a lot.

You can build out nuclear, renewables whilst not taxing fossil fuels and making end user bills more expensive. We can use the north sea for while it lasts and explore shale gas reserves.

The left is far more of a threat to women than Reform will ever be. I've given this click bait shit enough of my day.

Get over yourself.

Yes. Ahead in the polls but still with a minority of the population supporting them.

You've known, and liked this lady for a year. She is good for you, but you plan to cut the relationship because you dislike her husband's politics

It's not just that the OP dislikes her husband's politics, it's what it says about the therapist that she married a Reform Councillor. The OP may feel that she needs to be alined with the therapists own standards and beliefs, and this has broken that alignment. The relationship that a client has with a therapist has to be one of trust for it to work, and if the OP feels no longer feels that the therapist has her trust (for any reason at all), then she can, and probably should, end it.

It makes perfect sense. What doesn't make sense is why as a person who purports not to support Reform you started a thread to discredit Andy Burnham in the stated hope it would make people in Makerfield not vote for him.
Every person in Makerfield who doesn't vote Burnham (or Shepherd if right leaning) is contributing to a Reform win.
What also doesn't make sense is why you took such a strong stance about Burnhams remarks, yet are pretty much silent about Kenyon's, while framing yourself as the neutral voice of reason, seeking only to raise the quality of debate and protect women's rights.

What is your view on what Kenyon has said? I

If you want to judge a woman for the company she keeps then it seems like feminism still has quite a way to go

This has nothing to do with feminism, or misogyny, or the gender of the therapist. The OP would probably feel exactly the same if her therapist was a man married to a Reform councillor. It just so happens that the therapist is a woman.