UPDATE I’m (23f) getting cold feet about my relationship with my partner (26m) now that he has taken an interest in planning our future together.
Original Post:
So it’s been about a month, and I thought I should update as a talking things out with commenters really pushed me into realising that the relationship desperately needed help.
I asked him to do couples therapy with me, and although hesitant at first he agreed to give it a go. I found a provider, we had a look through profiles and chose one together, and then sent in our expression of interest within an hour of my asking. She responded two days later, and we had our first session booked in for the end of the week.
Knowing he was hesitant, we gave the TV show ‘Couples Therapy’ a go, accidentally starting on season 2 which I think may have been a blessing in disguise as those couples made a lot of positive progress. This ended up being a really good idea! My partner was far more open to therapy when we started and really threw himself into it, and it actually helped me to start identify to some of my problems (looking at Michal’s anxiety there, although minus the anger and aggression towards her partner).
I’m not going to go into detail with the stuff that came out, but even after just two sessions we understand each other so much better. We’ve got a lot of work to do to overcome things, but just understanding where our behaviours come from goes a really long way to wiping out the resentment, and helping us connect and communicate.
It’s safe to say we’re both carrying childhood trauma, which I think I was less aware of on my side. Like I knew my family dynamic wasn’t necessarily healthy growing up, and I have a complicated relationship with my parents as an adult, but I didn’t realise how much baggage it had left me with.
I feel more comfortable going into things from my side, so I guess I’ll talk a bit about that. I never really had any safe attachments growing up, and I struggle a lot with feeling safe in relationships (both romantic and platonic), and with trust. I didn’t even realise! I thought struggling with vulnerability and the way that manifests for me was completely rational and normal, but in retrospect of course it isn’t.
So some commenters suggesting that maybe I was overreacting, or that maybe it wasn’t just about the one situation, you were right! Just maybe not in the way you were expecting. It wasn’t just about the financial advisor, it was about two adults with childhood trauma trying to be better people together who needed a bit of help.
I know this is very vague on things from my partners side, but that is not really for me to share. I am however incredibly proud of him for opening up in the way that he has, and I’ve learnt so much about him as a person that he’s struggled to talk about before. Therapy has reaffirmed that he is the person I want to spend my life with, and has shown me that we’re both willing to put in the work to make that happen.
I’m excited about where this journey will take us, and about the future we can build together. We’re a great team and a great couple in a lot of ways, and the support we’ve been able to give each other as we’ve begun digging into our respective traumas has made me feel really positive about the relationship and where we’re going, and that the things we’re struggling with are things that we can overcome together (with a little help from our wonderful therapist of course).
Tl;dr We started couples therapy and it was the best idea I’ve ever had. I will recommend therapy to everyone I meet for the rest of my life. I still have not learnt to not use long, run-on sentences.
Submitted May 23, 2022 at 02:57AM by coldconfusedannoyed https://ift.tt/ojtnNgs
No comments:
Post a Comment