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?

I searched many forums and this forum was very active and people seemed helpful.

You sound like you have severe narcissistic traits. And it's true what they say, narcissists project, never accept responsibility, and don't listen. It's all about them

This reminds me of a situation I once found myself in, and I believe it falls under the term 'reactive abuse.' It followed a familiar pattern. I would get asked questions (often rhetorical) that the person knew were 'triggers' and I would get passive aggressive statements like 'Oh I'd like you to help but you're so busy...' Then my reaction became the problem and I'd get 'Oh you're so sensitive' and 'I thought we could talk about anything' and 'Wow. You get angry so easily.'

OP, you're manufacturing drama and then playing the victim card.

Needless to say as far as my situation is concerned it's happily over.

You did put words in his mouth.

You walked in and interrupted him, didn't accept the explanation he gave you, tried to turn it into an argument, and then turned on the waterworks. Why did you do this?

Why didnt you just leave him to have a shower in peace?
Why didn't you accept his explanation?
Why did you take it personally when he wasn't even talking to you?
Why did you cry?

Do you think your behaviour was an appropriate response to the situation?

In your shoes I would broach the topic of personality disorder with your therapist.

The two of you should not get married.

If he isn't happy paying for everything, then you need to slow down your debt repayment schedule. You should at a minimum be covering your own costs (eg food, toiletries, transportation, clothing etc). Possibly not housing if you moved into his house and he would have had those costs anyway.

If he left you tomorrow, how would you cope? If you literally cannot afford to support yourself with your debt situation, you are in a very risky position because I honestly cannot understand why he is still with you.

What hours does he work compared to you? I assume you're working at least as many hours as he is if you think you shouldn't have to do more of the chores than he does.

My god. Leave him for his sake.

I’m a counsellor, and will just chip in to say that I hope you have gained his written consent to share recordings of him with your therapist? I understand it’s helpful to discuss how you interpret and respond to his words during interactions as it might give you insight into your own (anxious) responses, but if hes not in the session with you I would consider this unethical.

In the kindest possible way, if drinking coffee makes you anxious perhaps switch to decaf. Also, the way to deal with this sort of anxiety isn’t to avoid the situation as it won’t help you get over the anxiety. You can’t expect people to reschedule all the time so you can avoid dealing with your anxiety. But, hey, you have a therapist so surely they have talked to you about this.

Unanimous verdict on this thread that your partner’s wants and needs are normal and you are being unrealistic in your demands and expectations.

What are you going to do about this OP?

You sound really negative.

And self-obsessed, needy, clingy and whiney.

You need a better therapist.

Please leave him. It sounds very controlling when he can't even practice a speech in peace or talk to himself.

When you started crying you made it all about you and sounds very manipulative. I have come across frenemies and people at work acting like this. It makes life very stressful as I have to be aware I don't 'upset' them by accident.

Most people definitely do regard going out to eat together as a date.

If you knew that the normal pattern was to eat and then go home, it was unreasonable of you to get upset when he expected the same thing to happen again. You could certainly suggest doing things differently, but that doesn’t mean he must instantly agree with you.

Your relationship sounds totally lopsided: everything has to be about you and your feelings, or you 'punish' him by getting upset. I have no idea why he puts up with it.

To not even be able to have some privacy in the shower is awful. You need to address your insecurities.

This is an interesting thread because you remind me of my mother OP (who is old but never learned to take responsibility for herself).

It is not possible to have a discussion with her even over small things e.g. shall we meet for lunch today or tomorrow, as it quickly descends into what I have or haven’t done, tears and recriminations, silent treatment and me agreeing to whatever she wants to keep the peace until I have done my duty and can get away from her. Reading your posts OP gives me more insight into how emotionally limited my DM is.

You are getting harsh feedback here OP but you sound a lot younger than my DM, so you have an opportunity to change, by really looking into where this abusive behaviour is coming from and spending time alone getting to know yourself and taking responsibilty for what is going on in your mind and your actions. I hope you can do that with a proper therapist (not one who agrees with what you saying and supports your abusive behaviour). Take this opportunity, you would be happier if you did and you would have much better relationships.

‘Stop this stop this’ 💔 I feel so sad for this man. I am not sure if you are psychotic or just have a very low IQ.

reading about the water filter man - you are pathetic, you make his life so hard by expecting the world to revolve around you - no he should not rearrange because you are anxious, you should.

you are an abuser. You have isolated him from his friends. You do not respect his personal space, boundaries, views. You only care about yourself.

He absolutely should not ‘tell you he loves you and cuddle you’ when you invaded his time in the shower. YOU SHOULD NOT INVADE HIS PRIVACY. you are truly awful. To echo what your poor partner has said STOP THIS

No currently he does slightly more house work than me because I’m having some health issues

You're financially abusing him, OP. On top of the emotional abuse.

You need to get a PROPER in person therapist and work on yourself before you are in a relationship.

When he suggested you record the arguments are you sure that he meant this literally? I used to have very toxic arguments with someone and would regularly wish out loud that we could record the crazy arguments as proof of how crazy they were.

It is a very active forum and there are many wise people on here.

I’m going to address the ‘negative’ tones overheard in the shower. It often happens that the music or tonal qualities in different languages can sound aggressive. But they’re not!
It’s not surprising, OP, that your partner wanted to defend himself if he was talking in his normal voice.
You should continue with therapy for your issues and not expect your partner to be your therapist. That is a sure way to kill a relationship.

OP do you understand why almost everyone replying to you are saying you are being abusive?

You don't see him as a person at all, someone to meet every need you have to fill whatever internal massive void makes you behave like this.

Why did it take you "several days" to apologise for not even bothering to listen when he had breathing issues, and then picking a fight about not getting your own way?

No currently he does slightly more house work than me because I’m having some health issues

Sounds like he does too - what are your health issues?

An abusive frock-lodger. We've had a flurry of these recently.

This is one of the most abusive, toxic threads I've read on here where the woman is the abusive one. You have serious issues. In what world do you think it's okay to work less, do less housework and cooking, contribute NOTHING, not let him see his friends, not let him have any privacy and call all the shots then go complain about HIM. Poor man.

Poor guy

OP, go home, go back to Russia.
You say you have your parents there.

Living in a foreign country can be very hard mentally, especially if you have social anxiety or intrusive thoughts or borderline paranoia. It makes it 10x worse.

You initially married a doormat, left him because he wasn’t enough to go try out your chance in Asia. Big surprise, you end up as the « all expenses paid » gf of a local guy that you try to turn into a doormat again.

i don’t think it’s gonna end well.