My wife thinks I need to see a therapist, I think I'm aware of my problems

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Did you read the OP or any of the rest of the thread?

My wife specifically believes I need to go to therapy to talk about my relationship with my father.

Just because that’s what your wife thinks you need to talk about doesn’t mean that’s what you have to or need to talk about. It would be your therapy, not hers, so you decide the focus.

Then you're on my side—I find meditation, focusing on my parenting skills and exercise to be my "therapy".

is that helping you be less angry and snappish with your kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Did you read the OP or any of the rest of the thread?

My wife specifically believes I need to go to therapy to talk about my relationship with my father.

Just because that’s what your wife thinks you need to talk about doesn’t mean that’s what you have to or need to talk about. It would be your therapy, not hers, so you decide the focus.

Then you're on my side—I find meditation, focusing on my parenting skills and exercise to be my "therapy".

is that helping you be less angry and snappish with your kids?

It helps improve my sense of calm and helps me provide a positive model for my kids. Thanks for asking!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's obviously lots of details that can't be included, but you know, I'm a modern american husband and father, and I have stress in my life. Sometimes it's overwhelming, sometimes I make parenting mistakes, etc. My own parents were not great, but I'm very aware of all that, and I've worked hard to avoid the mistakes they made—in fact, my parenting flaws, which I have, are very unlike theirs.

My wife thinks therapy would be helpful and would help me "unpack" my feelings about my parents and help me be a better father or person. I've tried therapy and I found it extremely unrewarding—I felt like I just had to have a conversation with a person I don't know, about things that I already know about and don't really enjoy talking about, and she gave me kind of milquetoast suggestions on how to handle various issues. I didn't cry or discover anything new about myself.

I understand the importance of not suppressing things, but I also think that it's important to not dwell. I'm not deeply opposed to the idea of therapy and it does seem to help some people, but I feel like I'm pretty introspective and aware. I guess I'm just wondering if maybe there's a certain KIND of therapist or style of therapy that might be more productive?

Cool.

Keep posting here 10x a day too. You got this!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve seen about five therapists over the course of my life, and two of them were just awful. It was all just really stupid and obvious stuff. Sometimes I think about the fact that if I had only ever gone to them, I would think that therapy was so dumb.

But I had one therapist who was truly life-changing. And a couple others who were pretty good.

My guess is that your spouse, who presumably knows you very well, thinks you do not seem happy, and would like you to be happy.

At what point did you know the awful ones were awful? How soon did the life-changing one begin to distinguish themselves from the awful ones, and then from the pretty good ones?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve seen about five therapists over the course of my life, and two of them were just awful. It was all just really stupid and obvious stuff. Sometimes I think about the fact that if I had only ever gone to them, I would think that therapy was so dumb.

But I had one therapist who was truly life-changing. And a couple others who were pretty good.

My guess is that your spouse, who presumably knows you very well, thinks you do not seem happy, and would like you to be happy.

At what point did you know the awful ones were awful? How soon did the life-changing one begin to distinguish themselves from the awful ones, and then from the pretty good ones?

Even the people who strongly buy into the idea of therapy seem to say it should be a limited engagement kind of thing, so I'd say it shouldn't take long. Also, if you do think it's important to talk and unload your inner secrets, you should get a pretty good feel right away if this is a person who you can do that with.

[Anonymous]

OP's thread title pretty much sums it up - he thinks he's fine, his wife doesn't. Cue 13 pages of the exact same dynamic...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP's thread title pretty much sums it up - he thinks he's fine, his wife doesn't. Cue 13 pages of the exact same dynamic...

I dunno, the takeaway seems to be he's actually doing a bunch of things he doesn't realize are a form of therapy, but also, if he doesn't want to go talk about his crappy parents, he shouldn't, because that doesnt' seem relevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Did you read the OP or any of the rest of the thread?

My wife specifically believes I need to go to therapy to talk about my relationship with my father.

Just because that’s what your wife thinks you need to talk about doesn’t mean that’s what you have to or need to talk about. It would be your therapy, not hers, so you decide the focus.

Then you're on my side—I find meditation, focusing on my parenting skills and exercise to be my "therapy".

is that helping you be less angry and snappish with your kids?

It helps improve my sense of calm and helps me provide a positive model for my kids. Thanks for asking!

So no. Sounds like you are still snapping at your kids. Your wife is obviously concerned if she's still bringing this up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Did you read the OP or any of the rest of the thread?

My wife specifically believes I need to go to therapy to talk about my relationship with my father.

Just because that’s what your wife thinks you need to talk about doesn’t mean that’s what you have to or need to talk about. It would be your therapy, not hers, so you decide the focus.

Then you're on my side—I find meditation, focusing on my parenting skills and exercise to be my "therapy".

is that helping you be less angry and snappish with your kids?

It helps improve my sense of calm and helps me provide a positive model for my kids. Thanks for asking!

So no. Sounds like you are still snapping at your kids. Your wife is obviously concerned if she's still bringing this up.

Nope, happy to report that I never really snapped at the kids and certainly don't now!

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you are totally self aware and have your problems completely under control. So what's the problem? Are you just addicted to chatting with strangers endlessly about yourself?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you are totally self aware and have your problems completely under control. So what's the problem? Are you just addicted to chatting with strangers endlessly about yourself?

You and me both, brother.

But, generally, people are always talking about therapy here, so I thought I would ask why I should bother and/or what to make of people who think talk therapy about past trauma is the ONLY option for fixing problems. It's been interesting, and lots of people have had good suggestions for non-talk therapy solutions, other people have sworn by therapy but explicitly described things that are not talk therapy and a small handful of people have been very upset and clearly have some kind of deep attachment to the idea that everyone must uncover a trauma or never be better.

[Anonymous]

OP none of us can explain to you why your wife is insisting on therapy; personally, I have a hard time imagining she is pushing this hard because she wants you to have some deeper understanding of your childhood. People generally push for change when current circumstances are problematic, which leads me to believe that your behavior with her and your kids affects them in a way you’re unable or unwilling to accept. 13 pages of you pushing back on therapy and arguing with posters provides a pretty good clue of how you respond to the people in your home. I’m pretty pragmatic and I don’t believe in endless talk therapy either, but the issue isn’t whether that’s good or bad, the issue is whether or not whatever you’re doing at home is successful. If your wife is still pushing for you to do something that you’re not doing, consider that whatever solutions you’ve found at this time aren’t doing the trick. And ignore that reality at your peril.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not like therapy. I don’t need to rehash my life with anyone.

OP, it seems you and your wife need to brush up on parenting skills. I’m sure she has dealt with morning meltdowns and not been happy either. There must be consequences and incentives for kids who won’t listen. You need to discuss this with your wife, not a therapist.

Hang in there!

Thanks... I also want to be super clear, the reason I gave therapy a shot was not because I can't handle my kids. That was an example of a conversation I had with my therapist that I found particularly unhelpful. I described a relatively common issue that I thought would be universally accepted as an example of something everyone recognizes and was making the point I got an extremely pedestrian response that frankly I had long ago arrived at and didn't need to be paying a couple hundred bucks for. I should've used the example of how I felt unusually irritated at how often my bike chain was skipping and could've saved myself two pages of posts about my child abuse.

Did you actually give it a shot though? Because showing up and going with the attitude that it's not useful and you're aware of everything that's not giving it a shot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not like therapy. I don’t need to rehash my life with anyone.

OP, it seems you and your wife need to brush up on parenting skills. I’m sure she has dealt with morning meltdowns and not been happy either. There must be consequences and incentives for kids who won’t listen. You need to discuss this with your wife, not a therapist.

Hang in there!

Thanks... I also want to be super clear, the reason I gave therapy a shot was not because I can't handle my kids. That was an example of a conversation I had with my therapist that I found particularly unhelpful. I described a relatively common issue that I thought would be universally accepted as an example of something everyone recognizes and was making the point I got an extremely pedestrian response that frankly I had long ago arrived at and didn't need to be paying a couple hundred bucks for. I should've used the example of how I felt unusually irritated at how often my bike chain was skipping and could've saved myself two pages of posts about my child abuse.

Did you actually give it a shot though? Because showing up and going with the attitude that it's not useful and you're aware of everything that's not giving it a shot

I mean, I described pretty exhaustively what I’ve done and what has worked. This feels like a trick question - what’s the metric by which we decide I’ve tried hard enough? When I break down and talk to a stranger about my dad?

The things that I want to improve in my life seem pretty clear cut and so does the list of things that I can use to address them. Of course the self awareness doesn’t help if I don’t pursue those things… but the question is what is there to gain from this traditional talk therapy about childhood trauma?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP none of us can explain to you why your wife is insisting on therapy; personally, I have a hard time imagining she is pushing this hard because she wants you to have some deeper understanding of your childhood. People generally push for change when current circumstances are problematic, which leads me to believe that your behavior with her and your kids affects them in a way you’re unable or unwilling to accept. 13 pages of you pushing back on therapy and arguing with posters provides a pretty good clue of how you respond to the people in your home. I’m pretty pragmatic and I don’t believe in endless talk therapy either, but the issue isn’t whether that’s good or bad, the issue is whether or not whatever you’re doing at home is successful. If your wife is still pushing for you to do something that you’re not doing, consider that whatever solutions you’ve found at this time aren’t doing the trick. And ignore that reality at your peril.

Here’s a reason - she comes from a different background, has her own childhood trauma that she feels comfortable talking with a therapist to sort out, perhaps has her own trauma with my dysfunctional family that she would like to talk to someone to sort out and she has a tough believing I could work through my own trauma without going to someone about it. But we’re different.

If you want to talk about what’s become clear over the last 13 pages is that, actually, I already do quite a few things that most people consider “therapy” and I am very happy with them. By most people’s standards, apparently, I am doing therapy. Maybe I could benefit from cbt, which I’d never heard of? I keep talking about it because I find it interesting.