Help! My Partner Needs Therapy But Won’t Go

Hi there Jethro, we appreciate that you love your girlfriend and want her to feel better and have support. She does have a point that the decision has to rest with her. We are glad to hear you are attending therapy, as often we suggest that the best way to encourage someone else is to live by example. On that note, have you talked about all this with your therapist? Not about her not wanting to be touched, but about your desire for your girlfriend to go to therapy, and her not wanting to? It’s an interesting thing to explore. It sounds a very intense intertwined relationship of two very sensitive people, have you discussed things like personal boundaries, interdependency, and self care within relationships with your therapist? Finally, we do hope your therapist didn’t word it quite like that, that your girlfriend’s depression is somehow your fault. As you said, your girlfriend has always been depressed. Best, HT.

Hi Jethro, Therapy is a place to discuss relationships, which strongly inform who we are. Many people go to therapy just to work on relationships, either those with family, colleagues or partners. Have you bought this up or are you assuming that your therapist won’t want to hear about it? You can’t make someone go to therapy. The article and the linked article it mentions does a good job of discussing the limits of how to talk to someone about going to therapy, have you given them a read? As for talking to someone without ‘upsetting them’, you can communicate in a healthy, non blaming manner https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/communication-problems.htm. But you can’t control someone else’s reactions any more than you can control if they do or don’t go to therapy. Is this someone you can be yourself around? And you can accept as they are? Or are you always second guessing and walking on eggshells? Or always trying to change her? Good questions to look at. We also advise you read our article on healthy relationships http://bit.ly/HTrelationshipguide. Best, HT.

Hi Liz, did you read the article? It has pretty good information to follow including a link to an article on how to suggest someone needs counselling without upsetting them. Also use the search bar to find our article on how to help someone who is suicidal. Going to counselling has to be his choice. If you ever do think he is really going to hurt himself or someone else, though, of course do call emergency services. And if you do feel overwhelmed by all this, don’t overlook seeking support yourself, as the article suggests. Best, HT.

Hey there Maitland. It’s your life, and you ultimately must do what feels right to you over take advice from someone you don’t know. But we think it’s quite mature to recognise the manipulation in that. Unless you really wanted to go to therapy again, that would be manipulation indeed. We simply cannot push someone into therapy, it is unhelpful, it has to be a personal choice. We always recommend living by example, but honestly. So if you truly believe therapy helps then you likely would still be in it yourself. Otherwise, it’s worth asking what this relationship is really based on, if you want to discuss/change/move forward and she doesn’t. Do you actually share values? As that is the only thing that really matters in relationships. Or is it just shared grief and problems connecting you? This can create a very intense sort of addictive intimacy in some instances, shared grief can make us feel vulnerable and attached. But again, values must be shared or it’s a pain-based relationship, something we can easily confuse with ‘love’, particularly if we grew up in difficult households where we were wired to accept pain as a form of love. So what was it that made you break up in the first place? Have those things really changed? All worth doing some soul searching over, also taking a good honest dive into any codependency patterns going on between you. Best, HT.

Hi Rosie, we get it, it can be frustrating if we are going to therapy and putting in the effort and a partner isn’t. Have you talked this through with your therapist? That would be best. What we are noticing is that you seem clearly not okay with her behaviours but are telling her you are. If her not doing housework etc is actually bothering you, which from your comment it clearly is, it’s better to look at that together than pretend it’s okay as that will just lead to a buildup of resentment as we are feeling here. So what we are saying is that there seems to be an issue with honest communication that could be worked on. Your therapist could help you with how to approach this. Another example related to communication we notice is that you turn to her for comfort by saying “I want to die”. We don’t know you or your situation but this is a pretty big way to get comfort from a partner. There feels a lot to unpack there. In general we’d ask questions like, do you feel comfortable asking for your emotional and practical needs to be met as they arise? Or do you tend to hide them, let them build up, then use intensity to get them met, which might be overwhelming the other person? How could you upgrade your ability to be authentic, communicate clearly, and get your needs and wants met before they need to reach levels like threatening suicide? And how well are you taking care of your own needs outside of the relationship? Do you have ways to deal with your own emotions besides therapy and the relationship? Other friends, family, do you journal, what is your support system and emotional processing like? In summary, the only person you have any power over you, and if she doesn’t want to go to therapy she has a point, you’ve either got to accept that and respect it or look at what it is you want from life and a relationship and if it’s going to be found in this relationship, which could however benefit from working on communication and self-care. Best, HT

Hi Xo, you can’t make someone go to a therapist if they don’t want to. The only person you have power over is you. You say you’ve ‘changed’ after meeting a psychiatrist did you to do talk therapy with this person? We are a bit confused by the time line as you say it’s only been 4.5 years and we are guessing you didn’t see a psychiatrist until well into the relationship? The only reason we ask is that it’s very unusual to just suddenly become so different one is a perfect partner in a few short years of therapy, and the other partner is the only issue. It sounds like you are blaming him in some ways for the entire relationship going wrong now, so it feels there is a blame problem here going on both ways. Our best guess is that this is bigger than just his father’s death, that the real issues were there far in advance of this situation, and that you both are a part of the issue. Do you, for example, feel comfortable giving him space when he needs it? And in being patient letting him come to you in his own time? Or do you need proof constantly that he cares or puts your first and a constant need for displays of connection? As we’d guess he needs a lot of space at the moment, sometimes love means giving space. We also notice you have expectations of how he should or shouldn’t be acting or grieving. Grief is individual not everyone wants to talk. Two years is not that long for the grief spectrum, and to be honest for some people if they feel constantly monitored or suffocated or judged they might be less likely to process their grief. In summary, we have never seen a relationship where it wasn’t pretty much 50/50, even if one partner is going through a trauma. So the only power you have here is your over own reactions, behaviours, feelings, and choices. So we’d say shift the focus from him going to therapy or not to those things, and if you feel overwhelmed seek therapy yourself again, the best way to inspire others is through example. At the very least you could gain clarity on what you want and don’t want. Best, HT.