Tinydance

What has your therapist done that warrants her not being liked? Could you provide what she has said and done specifically?

I just get the sense that you don't like therapists either/don't think much of them. It's very common here in Australia to see a therapist or at least to be a client of some kind of social welfare service for mental health, addiction issues, and so on. The Australian government is quite generous with giving funding towards social welfare. You can actually get a mental health care plan from your doctor to see a psychologist ten times a year which is heavily subsidised by the government. There are some very good therapists our there like my last therapist who actually genuinely cared and was very kind. In any case, the OP himself wants to see a therapist and finds it useful. In my opinion that's his choice to do what he feels is helpful to him. If his girlfriend really wants to support him then she needs to stand by what he wants to do to improve himself. I understand if she's worried he's becoming more low or stand offish after therapy sessions. But it makes no sense to blame the therapist for this and call her swear words. I'm sure the therapist isn't telling him to behave like this towards his partner. It's just not mature to put blame on the therapist when she needs to address this with him, her partner.

OP, how old are you and your girlfriend? How long have you been together? Personally I'm getting a bad feeling about your relationship and I agree with the others who said it might not last. Your girlfriend doesn’t sound emotionally mature or like she understands what therapy actually is. You said she basically forces you to tell about what you talked about in therapy like you have no other option. In my opinion that's a huge red flag. You don't have any obligations to tell her what you talked about. You’re right that therapy is private and it's supposed to be confidential. That's why therapists don’t tell anyone at all about what you said. Unless it's a legal matter requested by court or you're at risk of hurting yourself or others. You’re supposed to feel like therapy is a private space just to talk about whatever you want. By forcing you to tell her everything you say in therapy, your girlfriend is taking that safe space away from you. She sounds very paranoid that you're talking to your therapist about her. Firstly, it's actually normal to talk to your therapist about your partner. Even if it’s something negative, you're working things out and discussing them. If your girlfriend thought your relationship is solid then she wouldn't worry about what you tell the therapist and wouldn't care what the therapist thinks. My ex-fiance always went to a therapist and I actually never even thought to ask him how it went. To be honest it literally didn't even enter my mind if he talked about me or not. I actually wouldn't even care if my partner talked about me in therapy. It seems to me people who are insecure or abusive in some way are scared the therapist would find out they're abusive. Secondly, even if you have become more withdrawn after therapy, that's YOU doing that. Your girlfriend can't blame the therapist and call her names. Your therapist isn't controlling you. Any behaviours you display are YOUR behaviours. The therapist isn't the enemy here.

Pole dancing and seeing a therapist are extremely different things! Of course there are things you need to change or give up if you're in a relationship. Like, you shouldn't cheat, go on dating apps, and so on. But you're allowed to have friends, hobbies, see a therapist. And you don't have to quit a job if your boss or colleagues are opposite gender. We are talking about normal versus unacceptable things in a relationship. Most people don't find their partner seeing a therapist abnormal or inappropriate. Getting therapy is very common. I think if your partner feels secure in themselves and in your relationship, they won't see everyone as a threat to the relationship. E.g. If my partner gets served by a female shop assistant, I don’t care. If someone is insecure, or jealous, they might be like: "You were flirting with the shop assistant" when in fact that wasn't true. Someone jealous and insecure projects their own feelings. They see others as a threat by default.

100% this!!!!

But he is allowed to do therapy. Anyone is allowed to do therapy. He doesn't need his girlfriend's permission. She has a right to have a concern, but what is the concern ABOUT? That women *can* be catty, that she doesn't know this therapist? The concern has to be about something and not just "it's a woman." If she feels jealous that's fine but she doesn't need to act on it. Jealousy is mostly not good and that's why it's called the green eyed monster. Sorry but why should he change his individual therapy to couples therapy with her? Just to placate her and prove the therapist isn't catty or he's not sleeping with her? He's not allowed to do individual therapy because...why? Let's say if my partner gets a new boss at work and the boss is female. It's OK if I feel jealous but it's not OK to tell my partner to quit his job. Is it OK if I tell my partner he needs to quit because since the boss is female, she *could* be catty. And since she's female, he *could* have an affair with her. When in reality I have no idea who this female boss is, what she's like, or anything about her. Also if he wants to do therapy and not yoga - it's his choice. Same as if she wants to do salsa classes but not join a book club. Going to therapy isn't an issue so why does he need to change anything. I'm not saying he's right or a victim just because he wants to do therapy. I'm saying doing therapy is normal and his right to do so. So if she has a problem with it that's her issue. For example I hate sport, always have. If my partner wants to play sport and I don't like it, is that his problem or mine? He's allowed to play sport if it's what he wants, it's a normal thing to do. If I don't like it I would need to be with someone else who doesn't want to play sport.

I agree if the therapist seemed inappropriate or unprofessional in any way then that's different. I was getting the impression from OP's post that right from the start she didn't want him to go to therapy and she also didn't want the therapist to be female. I didn't see anything written in the post that the therapist had actually done anything wrong. In my opinion your partner also doesn't have a right to ask what you talked about in therapy. The whole point of therapy is it's meant to be confidential. If your partner required you to tell them everything you said in therapy every single time, it completely defeats the purpose. Therapy is meant to be a confidential and safe space. It’s absurd that his girlfriend basically demands and forces him to tell her what he discusses in therapy and gets angry if he doesn't tell her. She has no right to know what is being discussed unless he's threatening to harm himself or other people.

I also want to add that OP said right from the start that girlfriend wasn't happy with him doing therapy. And she basically said that she didn't like that it was a woman. So at that stage she didn't know anything about this therapist, who she was, whether she was catty or b*tch. She had no idea. So to me this really seems like some kind of control or jealousy issue that was there to begin with. I also think that jealousy is a natural feeling and we all experience it. It's probably also OK to say you feel jealous but you need to work on it. In life we're always surrounded by people of the opposite gender. So we just need to trust our partner that they won't do anything instead of trying to control their life.

Sure, women *can* be catty. Men *can* be macho alpha. However, not all are. So to say "get a male therapist because women can be catty" when she doesn't even know the therapist is just projection and stereotyping.

Sorry I'm really just confused by what you're saying. If someone isn't happy with their partners actions, there needs to be good reason for it, no? When we talk about people being controlling, it isn't your normal, socially acceptable behaviour. For example, let's say my partner's phone rings at 2:00 a.m. and it's an unknown woman calling. I'd have a right to question who is it and why is she calling. But if let's say my partner's female boss calls during the day and asks can he please fill in for someone at work tomorrow. And I get jealous and I'm like: "Why is your female boss calling you, are you having an affair??! Let me go through your phone." We call someone possessive or controlling only when that behaviour is out of the norm for the situation. In my opinion here OP's girlfriend isn't actually reacting normally to him seeing a therapist. Therefore I don't think it's the same to say "she's not happy" with something he's doing and that he's "putting seeing the therapist above his girlfriend's feelings." If he was hanging out with another female he met at a party then yes you could say he's putting that female above his girlfriend. Here it's not a competition as the therapist is nobody to him, she's a professional and she’s not in his life. I feel like what you're saying is "pick your battles" and think about is it worth it to see the therapist over your girlfriend's feelings. That doesn't really make sense because the girlfriend's reactions aren't normal or valid. So why should he validate them? And this is exactly what being in a controlling or abusive relationship is - obeying and placating your partner even though they're not reasonable.

Why is it actually a concern to her that you're seeing a therapist? Like, what's the problem?

Sorry but I respectfully disagree with your post. You said that if someone is easily influenced or suggestible, that the therapist could influence someone to break up with their partner. I've seen different therapists and in my experience they usually only go off what you tell them yourself. I very highly doubt that a therapist would tell someone to break up with their partner for basically no reason. Therapists don't usually tell clients what to do. But even if they did, it would be because the client themselves indicated they're unhappy with their partner. It never makes sense to me when people blame the therapist. Nobody can make anyone do something they don't want to do. Also often people actually want the therapist to validate what they already feel anyway. E.g. They say they're unhappy with their partner, therapist agrees and they break up because that's what they want to do to begin with. I don't think your analogy is the same that a therapist comes in and "your partner is crying on their shoulder." This isn't someone they met in a bar. It's a medically trained professional who has a client/therapist relationship with them. Therapy isn't crying on someone's shoulder but it's working on your issues with a professional with a degree and training to help you work on them. So it's really different to crying on a friend's shoulder. Above all the therapist actually gets paid a lot of money for it. They are essentially a stranger providing a service to you the same as a shop assistant would. They aren't in your life. Unless you're having an affair with your therapist, you don't actually talk to them or see them outside of therapy. And you basically don't know anything about them either except what they choose to put on Google. I don't think that couples only should work on issues together and that's all. Of course they should do that but there is nothing wrong with wanting to speak to a therapist either. Someone has the right to do therapy and their partner should be supportive about it. The partner doesn't need to know what is said in therapy. I did therapy and so did my partners and we didn't ask each other what was being said in the sessions.

Dude, there are some very serious red flags here. I'm really surprised that you still don't quite see it. Even after basically every poster here said that this is not normal. Number one, it's literally not any of your girlfriend's business if and why you go to therapy. It's also none of her business what you talk about in therapy. You should be allowed to talk about whatever you want in therapy. She has no right either to know or to have any control what you're talking about in therapy. You having a female therapist is very different to you having a female friend. Your therapist isn't even actually in your life and you don't speak to her or see her outside of the therapy sessions. You have a client/therapist relationship, this is her job. It's no different to someone having an opposite gender boss at work. The relationship is (or should be anyway) professional. If your girlfriend is jealous of your therapist, this is 100% HER problem. You have zero obligation to tell her what you say in therapy or to defend yourself in any way. Also she doesn't even know your therapist so calling her the "b" word is just her being jealous and possessive. By the way, being controlling and possessive isn't normal. It's not a cute, sweet thing as for some reason you seem to be really minimising it. Please wake up because your girlfriend's behaviours aren't normal.

Well first of all, I understand you want your son to get along with his Grandmother. But he's 29 so I don't think you can really control how he's behaving or what he's doing. I'm sure he knew that the polite thing to do was to say thank you for the cheque but he just didn't want to do that. It's a bit different to saying to a small child: "Say thank you" as opposed to a 29-year-old man. I think at the end of the day it doesn't matter what we think or you think because he's an adult and acting according to what he thinks. To be honest I can see both sides of the story. I think that if his Grandmother agreed to take care of the cats, then she agreed to take on that responsibility. It's not good to leave the cats to themselves for most of the time, as they could have even died of dehydration. So I understand why your son was concerned there. I imagine she said no to taking care of the cats as she actually does find it difficult (for whatever reason). I'm sorry but when you get pets or have kids, you can't think that anyone OWES you to look after them. When you have them, they are YOUR responsibility. People don't HAVE to look after them, they don't have an obligation to do this. They can say yes or no and they are allowed to say no. Also was your son only taking his Grandmother out for sushi to get favours from her? I'm sure he wasn't but all I'm saying is, you don't do nice things to get something for it. For example, if I buy my friend a coffee, I can't be like: "You need to give me a lift because I bought you a coffee." I would be buying the coffee just to be nice and it's altruistic. Your son's Grandmother didn't do anything wrong because she said "no" to watching the cats. It wasn't like she said yes but then left them to die. Your son is allowed to ask for a favour but equally she's allowed to decline. She did send him money and he just ignored her. Yes it is entitled because he was angry at her for something she doesn't HAVE to actually do.

I do think she's using you because she asks for money and you send it to her regularly. So I agree with you there that she's taking advantage of you financially. You keep using the term "exclusive relationship" but you are not actually acting like you are in one. Exclusive relationship means you don't talk to other people on dating apps. I'm not saying she's not in the wrong because she's talking to John but you're doing exactly the same thing. You can't have a one sided "exclusive relationship" if you're on dating apps and talking to other women but she's supposed to be committed only to you. That's double standards. It doesn't matter if you only talked to those women. Maybe she only "talked" to John but you aren't OK with it. I think if you want to continue talking to other women then keep this relationship casual. Meaning you see each other when you go to her country but otherwise you can both talk to and date others.