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?

@togo1004

FFS OP, he can do whatever he wants in the shower- talk negatively, wank, sing, cry , whatever! As can you. It’s not about you - not everything is about you. Just give him a break and relax! What’s your life like? Gym, hobbies, friends? Maybe focus on these things to improve your overall wellbeing and it might just be that your relationship follows suit.

Borderline Personality Disorder. That's what it sounds like the OP has (I'm not a doctor though, so this is just my amateurish opinion).

This is abusive. Imagine not even being able to have a shower in peace and then the person who interrupts thinks they are the wronged party.

Why is it his job to validate your feelings around scenarios that are totally made up? It is completely self-centered.

I reiterate that this is an abusive and unhealthy dynamic and I feel for the fiance or anyone having to live like this.

In a previous thread OP said 'i have a worry that I’m making him sick. He’s been losing weight, and he won’t eat a lot anymore and says he full after a few bites. He doesn’t seem as positive as he used to be lately.' It's unfortunate that these brief flashes of insight then get lost in more wallowing in self-pity. OP, you are abusing your partner and you need to leave the relationship.

I’m going to be honest with you, what you’re describing doesn’t just sound like relationship struggles, it sounds like serious personal struggles. This isn’t about couples therapy, you need individual therapy.

You come across as extremely anxious, insecure, and emotionally volatile. That level of intensity isn’t just hard on a relationship- it’s unhealthy for you. You seem to need constant reassurance, struggle to regulate your emotions, and overanalyse everything to the point of distress. That’s not normal. The fact that a fight starting in the shower escalated and dragged on until 6am is dysfunctional. You’re consumed by your emotions and that’s not something a partner can fix. I really feel for your partner.

You’ve mentioned feeling panicked when your partner is having fun without you. That’s not love, that’s control rooted. These are deep personal issues, and until you work through them, NO relationship is going to feel secure, not because of the other person, but because of you. You need to stop focusing on the relationship and start focusing on your mental health. Not talking about your feelings endlessly, but learning how to manage them.

And I’ll be blunt - do not ‘give him children’ PLEASE do not bring a child into this world right now. You’re not emotionally stable, and children need parents who are grounded and resilient. Right now, you’re neither. Please take that seriously.

This isn’t an attack. It’s a reality check. You need help, not a new partner and not constant deep emotional discussions, help. Get it, for your own sake.

This. Probably need to start reporting posts as OP clearly a) unwell and b) abusive

Either you're a troll or an abusive woman. either way, grow the fuck up.

I'm sorry, @togo1004, but from your description of the fight in your OP, you absolutely DID pick that fight. Your partner wasn't talking to you or even about you, and if you hadn't pressed your ear up to the door, you wouldn't have heard what he was saying or his tone in saying it - but you pushed and pushed and pushed - and recorded the conversation to prove how right you were!

It was a horribly toxic interaction, and I think your partner was basically blameless.

I can understand why you find it upsetting when people speak in a fast or negative manner - but this is a you issue, not a them issue. You cannot control how everyone else in the world speaks - what you can control is how you react to their tone. You need to sit with your feelings, and see what you can do to change them, to change your reactions. You could start by telling yourself that their tone is not an attempt to hurt or harm you - it is simply a different timbre of voice, and a different speed and way of speaking - it has no power to harm you. If you feel the feelings start to bubble up within you, stop and take a few deep breaths. Focus solely on the breaths, in and out, until you feel the feelings begin to subside - then you can focus on the meaning of what the person is saying to you, rather than having a visceral reaction to the tone or speed of the words.

By doing this, you will take control of your feelings and your reactions, and I'm sure this will help you cope better.

Of course, I am not saying that it is OK for anyone to be verbally aggressive, abusive or nasty towards you (or anyone, for that matter), and you have every right to draw a boundary, and say you are not willing to accept aggression or abuse. But the main responsibility for managing your feelings lies with you, not other people, when they aren't being nasty to you, you just don't like their tone.

I often do a daily meditation - I use the Daily Calm meditations by Tamera Levitt, on YouTube, and I find that these have really helped me to take control of my feelings by focussing on my breathing and my body.

I don’t think it’s appropriate to disturb him whilst he is showering in his personal private space and that is a boundary. You both need to have safe spaces where you can be alone with your thoughts. I think recording arguments is not the right thing to do, it is almost a reason to begin an argument to have a recording device ready and probably pushes you to confrontation more.

You're outsourcing your anxiety management to your partner and then feeling disappointed when he 'fails' and blaming him. It's not his job to control everything so you don't experience a negative feeling. It's your job to manage your anxiety and this relationship will suck him dry and wind you up.

I talk to myself often. I find it helps me to put things in a logical order and to rehearse potential responses for presentations.

Sorry, OP - you don't sound rational at all.

I don't often feel compelled to set up a GoFundMe page, but I really think it's time we all set one up to get the poor fiancé away from all this utter headfuckery!

My take on this is the OP is in an abusive relationship, and OP is the perpetrator

couple therapy is NEVER advised where there is abuse

the therapist here is way out of their depth

the fiancé needs to contact FREEVA and do the freedom programme

awful situation

Wowzers, OP, read this back to yourself

Fucking hell.
If my husband had approached me, while I was showering and talking to myself, and picked a fight about how me talking in a negative tone (to myself), I would cut him off. Probably with a lot of expletives.
It's abusive. Do you see that? You're disturbing his personal time and space to make him feel bad when he's done nothing wrong. You're telling him that he's making you feel pressure when he's literally done nothing to you, in front of you or around you.
Imagine he's eating some pasta and you don't like the smell. So you walk into the room where he's eating it and you throw his meal on the floor and then get upset that he isn't cleaning it. That's the physical version of what you've done here. You've disturbed his peace, ruined his experience and then made it his problem to clean up.
Respectfully as possible, you sound like an absolute nightmare to deal with.
Your feelings are yours and yours to deal with. He's not responsible for taking something you've completely pulled out of your arse and making it okay for you.
You should be doing individual therapy and probably not in a relationship.

Serious question: what's a therapist supposed to do when an abuser presents as a victim seeking help? I imagine therapists can get really scared of annoying someone who's so anxious and ultra sensitive.

So you still don't get it, and never will.
IT IS NOT ALL ABOUT YOU! He wanted to shower in peace, but you couldn't let him. Its all about me, me, me... with you. He doesn't have to listen (endlessly!) to the drivel coming out of your mouth, just because you can't manage your own thoughts/ emotions.

It’s not the job of a boyfriend to endlessly deal with your feelings! It’s your responsibility as an adult woman to deal with your own feelings. Where there is something important between a couple that needs discussion, that’s fair enough, but you feeling ‘pressured’, well this is honestly bonkers OP and really unacceptable in any relationship. I could not live with this, it’s beyond needy, veering into bullying, and the listening at the door is creepy.
I really think you need to be single for a couple of years and learn to stand on your own two feet, your expectations from a boyfriend are bizarre and totally unreasonable.

That makes zero sense, in view of the behaviours you describe yourself as routinely doing to him.

@togo1004, Mn is not a therapy forum. No one here wants to referee a toxic relationship, when both parties would clearly be far better off apart.

of course i do~! I started it, but he's also wrong for just constantly cutting me off. Two things like this can be true at once.

He's completely within his rights to cut you off if you're haranguing him and being verbally abusive. Which you are.

No if we separated I might literally die, I can’t even imagine.

Better completely change then, because he's going to, understandably, dump you for making his life hell on earth.

No if we separated I might literally die, I can’t even imagine

abusive, manipulative statement …

OP, I have to say that every tune I read one of your responses my eyes roll back so far back in my head that I am scared they won't come back.......but one thing that does stand out is that he must LOVE YOU VERY VERY MUCH, to keep dealing with the crap you are throwing at him.

That is a profoundly, profoundly abusive thing to say to someone. Emotional blackmail, utterly shameful.

You need to leave China, or Japan, or Korea or wherever it is and go home to Russia and sort yourself out.

They should explain that they cannot continue and end the session. It is not therapeutic to collude with abuse.