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 don’t know but we do fight all of the time about a week close to my period.

maybe my hormones are off as well my face and hair gets really greasy lately and I haven’t changed any of my cosmetics

Poor bloke wants you to stop badgering him. Just stop asking for validation all the time. As for the water filter man it is not helpful for you if he enables every minor anxiety.

With the greatest respect you need to work on yourself first - alone, not in a relationship. And change your therapist - encouraging you to record someone’s private conversations with themselves is wrong !

So why are you still with him?

If he is so crap as a partner, and you have listed all the ways you think he isn’t up to scratch, why are you still there?

OP, you are entirely self-obsessed.

If overhearing your boyfriend talking to himself in the shower makes you feel ‘pressured’ because he ‘sounds negative’, that is your issue to deal with, yourself. It is not something to bring up with him mid-shower, far less demand an explanation for, still less record yourself demanding an explanation for. Your issues are your issues.

If someone changing the water filter upsets you, then you deal with it. You phone the company and postpone till you’re less anxious.

Or, in both cases, you let yourself feel the negative emotion about the shower conversation or the water filter visit. Negative emotions are normal. They won’t kill you. They will pass.

Either way, some responsibility for managing your own emotions. They aren’t your boyfriend’s job to protect you from.

Do you actually see and value your partner as a person in his own right? Your thread is all about how you expect him to respond to you, and what he does and doesn’t do for you. What does he get out of the relationship?

If he wants to be negative to himself in the shower it's absolutely none of your business, why are you eavesdropping? You're controlling, I hope your therapist made that clear to you.

Does anyone else agree this is a wind up?? Surely not just me…??

I don’t think it does. OP is on here many times and it’s always the same - me, me, me, I, I, I. Validation, validation, validation. She has a lot of issues (from a neglectful childhood, so there is sympathy there). I think OP needs proper psychiatric care not online ‘therapists’ (ChatGPT?) or real life but poorly trained ones. She just goes round in circles, chasing validation like a dog chasing its tail. Nothing is ever enough.

You did pick a fight OP and are displaying wildly controlling behavior that a therapist will not back up and support.

Your feelings do not override other people or their rights. People can talk, have their own feelings or opinions and exist as their own entity. He does not have to continue the discussion (your feelings are not anyone else's responsibility but your own). He is allowed boundaries and to walk away to stop an argument, you HAVE to accept that. You were not 'discussing' you where actually 'picking' over an entirely made up in your head issue.

Your inability to drop it or accept it and your constant turning it back around to be about your perception of it is not normal (I hate to ask as its usually a lazy suggestion but are you possibly autistic and getting stuck in a loop of repeating without ability to read the situation is a symptom).

To be honest, the fact he already away in another room with added noise to muffle it as to avoid 'triggering' your behavior and you still spied, crossed boundaries (entered the bathroom while he was showering naked and vulnerable to corner him) and wouldn't drop it or allow him to get away from your accusations. If a woman had to live like that it would be called abuse.

I did tell her that we fight every few days or so. I know when it’s my fault, for example

I showed him a reel of a cool restaurant that I wanted to go.

he took me there we ate, and had a good time and he wanted to home and I wanted to walk around.

i didn’t realize that he had a hard time breathing that day, just wasn’t paying attention enough because I realized later he did tell me he was having a hard time breathing for some reason.

so when I asked hey let’s walk, he asked if we can go home. I got very very angry because lately we don’t walk much anymore and eat and just go home.

he was confused as usual why I was so angry. He said if you told me you couldn’t breathe well my initial move would be to take you to a safe place (home) and make sure you’re comfortable and you’re angry that I’m having a hard time walking at the moment?

I calmed down and few days later I apologized. This is one of the times I’m just plain wrong as I didn’t know he has a hard time breathing.

I’m inclined to think the same. The complete lack of self awareness is ridiculous if not, I struggle to see how anyone can be so completely, honestly, bonkers and not see that their behaviour is anything less than absolutely fine and perfect. Putting her ear to the door then bursting in to berate him for his tone while he’s apparently in the shower and not even talking to her or about her is beyond controlling and abusive for fucks sake.

You "don’t think it does" - don’t think what does what?

Your therapist is rubbish, because this is on you. When a person has to ask for conversations/arguments to be recorded for their own protection, then there is emotional abuse going on, and you are the abuser here. Leave the guy alone in his shower. Let him mutter to himself if he wants.

He is cutting you off because he's heard it all before. How he's not good enough for you, how you need this and you need that and how he must modify his behaviour to satisfy you and your endless emotional needs.

He needs to get out. If you have any care at all for this man, end things.

But you don't care about him, do you? Like all abusers, he is simply a tool to you, and when he doesn't endlessly 'validate' you (agree with you that he is the problem, whatever he does), then he is malfunctioning and you get your therapist to gang up with you to 'fix' him.

I hope one day he sees the light.

Wow this is so very weird, you don't need a therapist to tell you that recording conversations to analyse is really messed up . You need to break up with each other and read up about heathy boundaries for future relationships .

Because he often asks me to stop being negative. He says that I complain so much about work, my boss, about how tired I am that he doesn’t want to hear it. He says that me complaint a lot has a negative impact on his life because he believes that perception in life is a choice (I disagree).

so if I hear something negative I feel he’s being a hypocrit

I was thinking that too.

All I said was that I felt pressure from his tone

Which would have been fine if he had been speaking to you / about you. He was doing neither. You CHOSE to listen with your ear to the door when he was in the shower - that is so far from normal behaviour. Then, even though you couldn't really make out what was being said you decided you had a problem with it. Then, even when your poor boyfriend explained he was practising for a podcast about finance, you had a pop at him, started an argument, cried and stropped off in a huff.

Exhausting. He is a saint for putting up with you. You need to end this relationship and get lots and lots more therapy.

This, @togo1004 behaviour is completely toxic,.abusive and malevolent.
I don't even think she is as wide eyed 'oh gosh I just am misunderstood'... she comes across as cold, calculated and frankly quite dangerous.
I hope this poor man in real life who can help him escape. Is the Freedom Programme for males too?

He probably has a hard time breathing because you’re suffocating him with your issues. Again, there’s no solution for this that involves staying together. It’s an abusive relationship and he needs to get out so you can get help and do the work on yourself.

When did I claim I was perfect? I said I know I have lots of issues but wanting him to help me not overthink isn’t abuse

Once again you where abusive... why would you tell a story where you are dangerously abusive like its nothing.

You calmed down 'days' later, calmed down from what? you where the aggressor not the abused.

Well if it is it’s consistent. I only had to read the first few words to know who it is. You’d hope it is a wind up or there’s some bloke out there who has been trying to appease this unappeasable woman for what seems like a long time now when most people would have understandably walked out long ago.

Your behaviour is abusive.

You’ve posted asking for feedback and quite literally almost everyone has told you your behaviour is abusive.

Do you think that they are all wrong, or do you think it’s worth considering that they might be right?

But he’s right - you are incredibly negative.