Therapist feedback and want your opinion on her feedback

[togo1004]

my last thread got deleted, but some of the folks here know that I’m currently in therapy for having a rocky relationship with my fiancé.

i recorded a conversation that I had with my fiancé which turned into an argument and had it sent to my therapist and this was her feedback.

to preface this, the fight started when he was taking a shower and I heard him talking to himself as he normally does. I couldn’t hear the words but it sounded pretty negative. So I walked in and said “what are you on about?” He replied “I’m just practicing my speech. I’ll be doing a small podcast and debating on topics from money to relationships and I was just being a devils advocate for myself so that I can cover if there are any holes in my argument”

then I said “you sound negative” then he replied “I’m not being negative, debates can become passionate but nobody is insulting each other. Then I replied “but you sound negative”. Then he said “it’s not negative why are you keep sayin it’s negative when it’s not negative”. I told him that the way he was talking in the shower made me feel pressured. He then said “why would you feel pressured when I’m not talking about you? I’m just practicing my talking skills”. Then I replied “you sound negative and it’s giving me pressure and..” that’s when he cut me off and said “why do you always have a problem with me? Every few days you have some sort of an issue with me when I’m just minding my own business, I cannot understand at all, is there a problem?” I started crying and started to say “I just wanted to talk about how you made me feel when you do these things and..”. Then he cut me off again by saying “I don’t get it, I’m literally just talking to myself, I’m whispering which means you had to try to listen so hard to listen. If it bothers you so much, why are you listening?” That’s when I broke down and left the house for a walk.

my therapist said we are both wrong here. She said that “I need to learn to let go of these things especially when he mentions that it has nothing to do with me”. And she said he’s also wrong for “not validating my feelings and refusing to understand how it makes me feel when he talks to himself with such a tone and cuts me off”

We didn’t go into further detail than this we will go over Thursday.

what are your thoughts on this MN?

If a therapist isn’t willing to tell their client the truth then they’re not a very good therapist

No, I think that you should find ways to deal with the anxiety rather than put it all on your partner. Being able to do so will help you in all sorts of situations.

He has asked to set aside 2 HOURS a week for you to have your feelings heard. And where are you hearing HIS feelings? He asked you to stop and yet you push and push and push. You are not being fair to him.

OP you said in an earlier reply “if this was the other way around, my priority would be to hear him out and get him feeling normal first before I do anything“

The thing you’re missing is that managing your feelings isn’t his responsibility, it’s your responsibility.

There are so many things you can do to improve this situation.

1. You know that coffee makes you act weird, so completely cut out caffeine.

2. Don’t go looking for problems - if he’s talking to himself in the shower and his tone makes you anxious, go to a different part of the house, sit with your anxious feelings, and work out where they came from. Maybe journal about it and discuss with your therapist. These feelings are coming from you, and it is your job to manage them, not his.

3. Find a new therapist who challenges you more to work out where your negative feelings come from and how you can manage them. Don’t discuss your boyfriend in the sessions, focus on yourself.

4. Read up on the drama triangle and try to understand what role you are both playing. You seem to feel that you’re a victim of him being mean and not wanting to help you with your feelings, but his experience is that he’s a victim of you barging in to the bathroom and ruining his shower. You are both stuck in victim mode which is stopping you from taking any responsibility.

5. Just do one talking evening a week, two is too many. Use the time to work through a thing called “the marriage course”. It gives a really really helpful structure to this kind of conversation and can help you both feel understood and listened to and reconnected. (The website is quite confusing but you can select to run your own course and make it private for the two of you. You order two workbooks and watch videos at the beginning of each session and then talk using the prompts suggested.)

Your need to feel heard and understood by him is valid and a lot of men are not very good at this. But you are currently taking this to an extreme because you are in victim mode and you will never get want you want from him unless you massively change your approach.

Good luck. Mostly, take responsibility for yourself and stop making your feelings into his problem.

Poor bloke couldn't even have a shower in peace, you are absolutely unhinged. This realtionship is going nowhere.

Is it true what a PP said that you aren’t happy with him seeing his friends alone without you?

I finally had to tell him eating together isn’t a date. I want more quality time like walking, talking and etc.

Most people would think that going out to eat is a date. The problem is that you just won't be happy with anything other than having lengthy discussions every day about your feelings and the relationship and your partner doesn't see the need for that level of discussion about feelings. Most posters agree that talking about feelings all the time is not normal, not necessary, and totally exhausting.

This is not a positive relationship for either of you, @togo1004 . I agree that sending your therapist a link to this thread would be useful.

'but I feel as couples we should hear each other out no matter how big or small.'

If you turn this around though, imagine a man constantly accusing his wife of cheating, even though she hadn't done anything, would she have to listen and hear him out and validate his feelings on that? That's a common scenario you hear on mumsnet and I don't think anyone would think she would have to put up with it.

Your partner is allowed to be negative, he's allowed to go in a shower and have a moan (even if it is about you) he definitely wasn't in the wrong here.

OP, you having an ‘issue’, feeling a negative emotion about it and then browbeating your fiancé into altering his behaviour, isn’t the way to conduct relationships or your emotional life.

You should be exploring in therapy why you appear to find certain emotions intolerable, how to self-regulate, and how not to delegate managing your emotions onto other people.

Also, eating and talking while you eat is a date for the overwhelming majority of people. I can’t help but feel that doing even more talking to you after the meal is deeply unenjoyable for him, as you wax belligerent about how he ‘makes you feel’ things, so he faked an asthma attack. Or actuslly had one.

Every thing this poster says is true.

You need to be single, work on your mental health and work in accepting that you’re responsible for your behaviour and you alone.

I'm sorry to sound harsh OP, but in the gentlest, politest way - you have serious issues.
Your partner in this scenario did absolutely nothing wrong to you. (Well it could be argued that he was wrong not to respond to you in much stronger terms.) You, however, did virtually everything wrong. The poor guy can't even talk to himself (about his podcast) in the shower without you cornering him and subjecting him to utterly nonsensical and unhinged interrogation and chastisement, based solely on your own bizarre 'feelings' which have no basis in reality.

You are abusing your partner. You need to let him go, he needs to be free from your control and harassment. Then you need to seriously work on yourself and figure out why you are so unreasonable and controlling. I think you need a different therapist, one who is not afraid to be harder on you. Until you sort yourself out, please do not subject any other poor bloke to your issues.

OP, your insecurity is causing you to behave in a way that should not be tolerated by anyone. Recording a conversation while the other person is in the shower is abusive. Putting an ear to the door while someone is in the bathroom without any just cause is abusive. Stop it now. This relationship isn’t making you happy which is why you are demanding more and more from him and requiring constant validation. It’s doomed to fail because of this. Meet your own needs. Sort out your own self-esteem. Your partner is not responsible for the way you feel - you are.

All this sounds utterly exhausting and not the way a relationship is supposed to be. I haven’t read all the thread except the OPs posts but honestly you sound like a massive over thinker and you need to do a lot of work on yourself before being in a loving relationship. Relationships should not be this hard!

Sorry but I think you are completely self-obsessed, taking out your insecurities on your boyfriend and emotionally abusing him. He is not perfect either, none of us are, but having skimmed the thread, it seems obvious that you have behavioural issues that you need to resolve - on your own, taking responsibility for your own actions - before you will be able to have a healthy loving respectful relationship.

Your shower example - he was having a private rant to himself, a healthy letting off steam not expecting to be overheard. You barged in and made it all about you, despite him repeatedly telling you it wasn’t. A healthy way to react would be to respect his right for privacy, maybe ask if he was OK if you thought he sounded stressed, try to understand things from his perspective and above all not take it personally, give him some space.

Agree with all the other posters - you should end this relationship before you completely grind him down and take responsibility for your insecurities - grow up.

It wasn’t about you it was him being negative towards himself. You can’t tell someone how to talk. I don’t think your therapist should be sent your conversations or replying to them out of session. I don’t think it’s healthy to record them. It sounds like he couldn’t have a shower in peace without being recorded. I would see a conversation being recorded with permission when you both discuss and agree to record that exact conversation. Not walking in on someone when they don’t expect it and to start recording.

He replied “I’m just practicing my speech. I’ll be doing a small podcast and debating on topics from money to relationships and I was just being a devils advocate for myself so that I can cover if there are any holes in my argument”

So does he 'do' social media and does he have followers?
Does he genuinely have a podcast ?

What's his job?

I think you were completely unreasonable.
He's allowed time in the shower to 'practise his speech' if that is what he was doing.

You sound incredibly hard work from what you've posted here.

I also think it's rather unethical to record conversations with him to take to your counsellor UNLESS he knows and agrees.

That is out of order and I'm shocked your therapist agreed to listen.

I agree.

Poor bloke, just thinking out loud prepping for a podcast. I bet loads of people do it. OP says he was a musician in his younger days, It's probably second nature for him to rehearse.

In my experience people like this are never satisfied. Everything is centred around them and how they interpret every perceived slight. No amount of talking and validation is ever enough. You get past one non event and unwittingly stumble straight into another. It's awful.

OP you are going to lose him if you haven't pushed him too far already. As for recording conversations....... You'd only do that once with me I'm afraid. This is nuts. It shouldn't be this difficult OP and I guarantee he could find a 1000 other women with whom it wouldn't be. If you want this relationship to end, then crack on. If you want to keep him, then good luck turning this round.

I don’t need lengthy discussions about feelings on a date just want to walk around together more.

I only became upset because I thought he was being lazy, didn’t know he couldn’t breathe well

Hard agree with the therapist, except I wouldn't say your partner is wrong at all here. It sounds like he wasn't talking about you at all, and you made it about you. For seemingly no reason! You need to let it go.

He probably suggested recording because you had been gaslighting him and at least with a recording he could prove to himself it wasn’t “all his fault”. I think you sound incredibly abusive and I really hope he escapes. You need to take a long hard think and get proper therapy. I found this thread shocking, frankly.

You actually sound abusive. He needs to get away from you and I suspect you'd then stalk him

It doesn’t ever occur to OP that the world doesn’t revolve around her.

I don't know your other thread - was it deleted as posters felt it wasn't genuine or did you ask for its deletion?

Quite frankly, I think he should be your ex-fiance.

I don't know your backstory but you do appear here at least to have a very fixed mindset, are demanding and unreasonable.

If I were him, I'd be questioning my future with you.

Ok so your ex was perfect aside from not enough ambition, and your current DP isn’t perfect but useful for the time being as you are in debt.

I did wonder, because surely no-one could really be so totally lacking in self-awareness…