y’all need therapy. not girlfriends
Or they need a girlfriend that doesn’t mind listening and trying to help them work through their shit and defeat their fucking demons without asking them to pour out their soul to a stranger who is only listening because it’s their job. That’s the kind of shit you do for the people you love.
your partner is not your therapist. listening to your partner is one thing, but it is not their responsibility to help you work through your shit. that is on you.
one more time.
your partner is not your therapist.
also if I may hop onto this, I REALLY hate when people try to spin “therapists only listen because it’s their job” as a BAD thing. can you imagine if we tried to apply that to literally any other profession?
“why take your phone into the store to get it fixed? they don’t care about you, they’re only doing their job.”
“I don’t want to order a pizza. they’re not making it for me out of the goodness of their hearts, they’re only doing it because it’s their job.”
“why didn’t you just have your girlfriend do that surgery instead of going to a stranger who only saved your life because it’s their job?”
it’s their job because they are better equipped to do it than the other people in your life. jesus christ.
I’m a therapist. But I am not my girlfriend’s therapist.
With my girlfriend, I am free to be as partial, as irrational, as loving, as informal, and as irreverent as she and I like. And when we encounter an area of truly deep turmoil, I say–”I wish you’d talk to a professional about that.”
Because when I see clients as a therapist, the entire relationship is structured for them not to care about my wants or needs as a person, except for some very basic things: Meet a the time arranged, call if you can’t come, pay me, don’t physically assault me, don’t assume we’re friends outside of therapy. That isn’t because I don’t love my clients immensely; it’s like ensuring the sterility of an operating room. It’s a necessary basis for some of the work I do.
The self-contained nature of the therapy relationship gives them an environment that can handle the most radioactive of feelings. Inside my office, they can tell me about their rage and frustration with the people they love, and we can discuss whether that feeling is a rational, proportionate response; whether any good would come from sharing that feeling with the loved one in question; what the best way to strengthen that relationship is. And so a child enjoys life sheltered from the knowledge that their existence might cause their parent bitterness or pain; so a spouse supports my client in their healing from an abusive childhood, without having to talk them down from crisis every time they look a little too much physically like my client’s abusive parent.
I screw up in my friendships and romantic relationships when I am too much of a therapist. When I pursue areas of pain and hurt instead of letting someone feel happy and secure in my presence, when I don’t let anyone see my own needs and feelings and am therefore unreachable, when I respond to my loved ones’ concerns with logical analysis instead of acceptance and sympathy.
My therapy clients do not pay me to care, or to pretend to care. I’m a therapist because I already care. They just pay me so that I can feed and clothe myself while I devote my time to caring about them.
