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?

He is correct and you are wrong. You are expecting him to be a mind reader and act exactly as you expect him to. How can he possibly know what is wrong if you don't express it? You are setting him up to fail then playing the victim when he understandably fails to act "correctly". This is incredibly toxic, cruel and abusive.

No surprise that you were so quick to answer that one, somehow. At that height/weight, based on mostly eating sweet rubbish, I would imagine you are effectively malnourished. Good that your long-suffering partner is trying to help you eat more sensibly.

I am now seriously concerned for the safeguarding of the partner of the poster. If what she is saying is true - he is being abused emotionally, physically, financially and mentally on a daily basis / constant abuse from threats that she ‘will die without him’ if he dares end it, to ‘not paying for everything as she is paying off he off debts’ to ‘recording him’ and listening to him whilst he is alone etc
as a victim of an abusive relationships I am really concerned for him. The OP(abuser) will not stop and is not stopping on here. She continues to try to justify her abuse.

I read the OP on the previous thread where you say the poor guy is hardly eating and losing weight. Keep this up and, one way or another, you won’t have a fiancé to worry about for much longer. Poor sod.

Honestly if a relationship is this much hardwork I don't think it's worth it. Spilt up. Move on. Be happy. It sounds exhausting!

Your therapist should not have listened to it and sent it straight back to you. They don’t have your fiancées consent to listen in - he needs to give you and her consent to disclose it. Makes me worry about the therapists professionalism. Haven’t RTWT for the background

You shouldn’t be intruding on his space in the shower. Then he said he was fine and you still kept badgering him.

Your therapist is being very generous towards you as IMO you are 100% in the wrong here.

I haven't read the whole thread yet because it's 32 pages. But I wanted to add myself to the chorus of people who think you're therapist is wrong. He told you that what he was saying wasn't about you and that is where his responsibility ended. And I think technically he didn't even have the responsibility to do that You should have just left him alone.

I have really bad anxiety. I also have ADHD. I understand your feelings; I often feel like people are mad at me even though I logically know that they have no reason to be mad at me. But I also recognize that that's a "me" problem, that's not a "them" problem. It's not their responsibility to reassure me and resolve that for me. It's my responsibility to resolve it. It sounds like this guy is going above and beyond to try to make you comfortable and you are not seeing that.

You sound toxic beyond belief. He is allowed to have a shower in peace and privacy without being recorded and then interrogated over his tone of voice. I think that you are being ridiculous in feeling that every feeling you have needs to be validated. He doesn't owe you validating your every emotional state - sure when big things happen - but not just every fluctuation and paranoid mood.

I’ve tried to be helpful - as have many others on here - but I think we are wasting our efforts.

OP doesn't consider herself to be abusing her DP. How can she be abusing him? She loves him and would die without him, so we've been told. It doesn't make sense to her. She fails to see that her behaviour is horribly abusive. She's the one feeling the uncomfortable feels, so it must be his fault. If it's his fault, then he should also fix it.

She announced that she navigated the 'boiling anger' from another non event earlier as though it's some kind of achievement. It's quite chilling to read more and more updates. None of this is normal. She's dangerous and unhinged. There's no self awareness or perspective.

This is how we're now at 30+ pages, with countless people around the world telling her the real problem but I don't think she'll accept it. She's firmly rooted in the position that she is right and it is up to him to pander to her every emotional need. He won't ever make her happy because it's not possible from where she is.

He's a man not a magician.

"Why does he get so defensive" my God OP go back and re read your first post and try and have a little bit of self awareness

Can someone get ahold of him and let him know that if she talks about how the old water filter being thrown away makes her sad, ffs if you value your life, VALIDATE THOSE FEELINGS!

It seems unusual for someone to talk to themselves in the shower. But he clearly explained it was for this podcast appearance.

Once he said that you should be just left him to it, knowing it was nothing to do with you. To say you felt pressured by him reciting a speech that was noting to do with you while he wasn't speaking to you and was in the bathroom seems a bit weird TBH.

You both need space to do your own thing without the other assuming things or getting involved. I mean I think the fact he was in the shower/bathroom indicates he should probably be left alone. The bathroom is meant to be a private space when it's occupied.

I also want to say that this is why therapy isn't always useful. We need to have coping mechanisms and not have our worst tendencies validated. It is one thing to acknowledge your own emotional state, accept it and deal with it, it is quite another to expect everyone in your life to bend to accommodate your anxieties.

Tbh I doubt that OP even has a therapist, despite what they say. If they do, it's highly unlikely that they are accredited.

"I sent him an IG real about love/support. The quote was that “if someone has to ask for it, then it loses its value"

Passive aggressive then. Why don't you send him a reel about being grateful for his financial support. Probably get a better response.

On the water filter thread on 17 July she was talking about getting therapy and how she wouldn’t go alone as her partner needed to come too 🙄 Whatever therapist she’s managed to find in the intervening two/three working days is an online rent-a-quack at best.

I haven't read the whole thread yet because it's 32 pages.

Filter for just OPs posts, you're in for a treat.

I do think he’s actually right to cut you off due to your lack of boundaries.

It’s completely appropriate to block intrusive behaviour and not to validate your feelings, which as established are unreasonable.

Just because you have good times, this is a totally toxic and incompatible relationship.

You absolutely shouldn’t marry for both your best interests, this will only get worse.

You can’t change personality even with a therapist.

It’s not fair to make him be responsible for you financially and emotionally for the next 3 months.

Work as a single person with your therapist and find someone more compatible with your personality when you are more financially and emotionally stable for a relationship.

There's a lot to unpack here!

I didn't read all the messages so I might be echoing other posts, but everything I have read so far from you OP sounds very hard to deal with, for the both of you! I am very familiar with anxiety, low self esteem, trauma etc and everything you have written so far shows that your behavior is influenced by all these things rather than reality or healthy thought patterns. I am sorry you are having such a hard time and it is good that you are in therapy. I can't/won't judge any behavior from your partner as it's simply not fair nor useful to comment on his behavior when it is written through your lens.

What stands out from your messages is that you are extremely demanding; you seem to believe that others (i.e. your partner) are somehow responsible for managing your emotions. This is an unrealistic expectation and a very unhealthy relationship dynamic. In any relationship, but I am especially worried for when you would have children, so I hope you can address this issue before having children. I really don't want to kick you while you're down cause you sound very vulnerable, but you also need to be made aware that the way you are depending on others to feel secure and calm is not normal.

Good luck figuring things out OP. Stay in therapy and take care of your mental health by yourself.

I wonder if you may be Autistic, OP.

Give this guy a medal!

...his podcast debates will be fucking bulletproof after the shit he's having to contend with in the shower.

Extremely abusive. And a therapist will say it’s not their job to say who is right or wrong. You interrupted his shower to call him negative and wouldn’t leave it alone and tried to make him apologise to you when you started the issue. You feeling pressured is your OWN issue to sort. You really need to work on meeting your own emotional needs. I’m not shocked he gets defensive if you talk about your feelings constantly. They are YOUR feelings, your responsibility.

A good therapist will do both. Validate feelings and working on developing healthy coping mechanisms.