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

[Anonymous]

I’m Team OP. He’s a much more thoughtful than average DCUM poster. I agree with the posters who have pointed out that some people are huge therapy fans because it fulfills a particular need for them. That’s fine, but it doesn’t mean it’s for everyone, and it’s not particularly easy to find a great therapist.

My DH sometimes acts snappish to ragey over the everyday frustrations of life. He also, relatedly, often has trouble sleeping at night. I suggested therapy to him a couple of times when I was frustrated by his quick trigger. His response was that he knew exactly what his problem is—burnout from a highly stressful job. Sounds right given that he’s an entirely more relaxed person on vacation and/or when the Celtics win an NBA title. I told him he should at least try yoga and sports massages, and both have made a significant positive difference. I’ve never tried meditation, but that sounds promising too.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you need a better therapist. What in particular are you struggling with? Anxiety? Anger? Resentment? Entitlement? Trust issues?

Therapists can teach you goals based coping skills for these issues if regular relationships aren’t cutting it.

If you lack a moral compass, therapists can’t help with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has your wife given any specific examples on why she thinks therapy would be beneficial? Are you taking your stress out on her or the kids verbally or physically, drinking too much, isolating yourself etc? I feel like there must be a reason she's suggesting it if your previous experience wasn't helpful.
Cognitive behavior therapy could be more helpful to you since it is shorter term and usually involves developing goals and better ways of coping with problems rather than being just talk therapy or psychoanalysis. You also might relate more to a male therapist.

I don’t drink, I don’t abuse anyone… I’m just a normal person, who sometimes has a tough time. I’m willing and have taken medication for anxiety, that’s helpful. She just is a big believer in the idea that if something isn’t right in your life it must be because you have some buried problem that you need to work through. She has gone to a therapist and talked about HER parents, but it’s all a bit of a mystery to me, because they’re not that super deep in their dysfunction. I just don’t see what the point of rehashing things, but I don’t mind if she does.

I just feel like am I missing something that other people are getting out of therapy? My conclusion is no, some people just have a hard time examining themselves.

Is your anxiety productive anxiety or do you spiral and dump/withdraw?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So she has issues with you screaming at your children for… being children, and you don’t care to change anything about your actions, thoughts, behaviours to eliminate this? Because you ‘know yourself’?

I tend to think the people who are most opposed to therapy are the ones who need it the most. Maybe you just haven’t found the right one, a male therapist may be more beneficial for you.

+1.

A good therapist is well worth the expense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m Team OP. He’s a much more thoughtful than average DCUM poster. I agree with the posters who have pointed out that some people are huge therapy fans because it fulfills a particular need for them. That’s fine, but it doesn’t mean it’s for everyone, and it’s not particularly easy to find a great therapist.

My DH sometimes acts snappish to ragey over the everyday frustrations of life. He also, relatedly, often has trouble sleeping at night. I suggested therapy to him a couple of times when I was frustrated by his quick trigger. His response was that he knew exactly what his problem is—burnout from a highly stressful job. Sounds right given that he’s an entirely more relaxed person on vacation and/or when the Celtics win an NBA title. I told him he should at least try yoga and sports massages, and both have made a significant positive difference. I’ve never tried meditation, but that sounds promising too.

OP here, I love meditating. It's not always easy, and for awhile it didn't really change anything, it was just a nice break. But I've found more recently that I can apply some of the techniques and mantras when I am starting to get stressed about something like the kids being obnoxious. The 10% Happier app is my favorite, it has a very laid back and approachable vibe. And it has some core "courses" which I find extremely helpful. It's not super crunchy—it was founded by a former ABC reporter Dan Harris who had a panic attack on air and just found himself burnt out and struggling to maintain... it's very much built on the idea that it's okay to fail at it, you're not perfect at maintaining, but it's about continuing to begin agian. And making yourself 10 percent happier, or 10 percent less of an a-hole.

It just makes a lot of sense ot me in a way that therapy doesn't. But it's not comprehensive, and it only works as well as you use it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has your wife given any specific examples on why she thinks therapy would be beneficial? Are you taking your stress out on her or the kids verbally or physically, drinking too much, isolating yourself etc? I feel like there must be a reason she's suggesting it if your previous experience wasn't helpful.
Cognitive behavior therapy could be more helpful to you since it is shorter term and usually involves developing goals and better ways of coping with problems rather than being just talk therapy or psychoanalysis. You also might relate more to a male therapist.

I don’t drink, I don’t abuse anyone… I’m just a normal person, who sometimes has a tough time. I’m willing and have taken medication for anxiety, that’s helpful. She just is a big believer in the idea that if something isn’t right in your life it must be because you have some buried problem that you need to work through. She has gone to a therapist and talked about HER parents, but it’s all a bit of a mystery to me, because they’re not that super deep in their dysfunction. I just don’t see what the point of rehashing things, but I don’t mind if she does.

I just feel like am I missing something that other people are getting out of therapy? My conclusion is no, some people just have a hard time examining themselves.

Is your anxiety productive anxiety or do you spiral and dump/withdraw?

For most of my life it has been productive, but back in 2019 I was working on a major project at work and found for the first time in my life it was making me feel BAD an was preventing me from doing things. I got on paxil and it helped enormously, and then in 2023 I found myself being super irritable, in a different way than I had dealt with anxiety previously. Hence the attempt at therapy. It honestly just made me more anxious because it felt like an obligation and seemed so mysterious and useless.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It sounds like she's saying you have anger issues and giving you a chance to own them and resolve them.

No, I think she thinks anything that doesn’t work in your life is something that needs to be unpacked.

I have no problem admitting I sometimes lose my temper. But I feel like the conversation with the therapist went like,

Me: sometimes I lose my temper with the kids.

Her: is it often?

Me: no, but more than I would like

Her: well what is usually happening when it happens?

Me: well, I’d say it typically happens on school mornings, if my wife had to leave early and, it’s like 10 minutes until we have to go leave and one kid is crying because they don’t want pizza for lunch and the other is refusing to put his shoes on and also just announced he broke his school issued laptop.

Her: hmmm well, that sound stressful

Me: yes

Her; have you considered maybe waking your children earlier or perhaps getting up earlier yourself or I help avoid these stressful crunch moments

Me: am I really paying for this?

Her: we’ll discuss next week that’s all the time we have


So, yeah,,, it feels like some Paxil and kids who put their shoes on when they’re supposed to would solve most of my problems.

So you don’t handle things well when life doesn’t go your way? That isn’t your kids (or anybody else), that is you. It sounds like you know this. Parenting classes could help. Learning about child development and what is reasonable for different ages could help. If you keep going with therapy I’d focus on how you cope when life doesn’t go your way.

Why do you think I don't understand child development or what is reasonable for different ages?

NP here. The kinds of thing you describe are common, age appropriate behaviors. If you're saying that you would be able to handle situations like an adult if the children didn't act like children, then what you're really saying is that you aren't able to handle situations like an adult. Because part of being an adult is keeping control of our reactions, even when the children act like children.

Does that mean you wouldn't also benefit from strategies to help you gain cooperation from your kids? No, those would be good too. Paxil might be good too. It's certainly worth trying. But as long as you're saying things like this:

You wrote:
So, yeah,,, it feels like some Paxil and kids who put their shoes on when they’re supposed to would solve most of my problems.

Which sounds a whole lot like blaming abuse victims for being abused. Then that's a sign you lack insight into both their development, and the impact of your behavior on them.

Who is being abused?

Identifying a frustrating situation—children can be difficult and there's very little that can be done about it, because, they are children—and thinking about ways to handle the situation behavior (ie, getting up earlier and preparing myself, deep breathing, etc) seems far more useful than pretending that I have some deep-seeded emotional trauma because an objectively stressful situation causes a stress reaction.

I'm not saying you shouldn't address it when you have a reaction or a feeling or a behavior that you don't want to have or that isn't healthy for your relationships... I'm saying, it seems like therapy feels like an excuse to NOT deal with it.

Instead of saying, "I could have handled this situation better by doing X, Y or Z" you're grasping at straws to come up with rationalizations.

I didn't say anyone was abused. I said that "my behavior would get better if the other person's behavior changed" is a classic behavior of abusers. Whether or not what you did was abusive, you're still thinking like an abuser, which might or might not be something you learned from your parents.

No one can tell you how to handle the situation better because you haven't told us what happened. Your inability to describe your own behavior is baffling for someone who claims to have good insight and a desire to change.

Well, there's not one incident, and we don't have endless time, so I'm not sure what you really would like me to say, but from my perspective, I felt like there was a period of time where I was FEELING angrier than normal and got angrier than NORMAL more frequently. Sometimes it resulted in scolding my kids, but I never did anything problematic, but I think it was a situation where I was finding myself unhappy/anxious/irritated/annoyed more often than I usually am, and more than I find acceptable. I don't want to be ticked off every morning—it's not good. I thought I'd give the therapy a whirl because maybe there was SOME magical reason that I felt like I was feeling abnormally uptight, edgy, anxious, unhappy.

I sort of understand what you're saying about an abusive mindset, but I think there's nothing wrong with saying "This situation is a stressful situation. I need to avoid it or develop better coping mechanisms for it". That's just identifying triggers. I could have just as easily used the example that I would find myself unnaturally irritated when my bicycle chain came off the cassette. Maybe I should get a better bike, maybe I should do more maintanance, maybe I should remind myself that bicycling is just a hobby and is it really that big of a deal to have to get off and replace the chain?

People with anger issues or who constantly lose their temper never think what they’re doing is damaging. You are kidding yourself and it sounds like you’re continuing the cycle here. Bike riding isn’t going to help you stop yelling at your kids for doing kid stuff.

Who said he constantly loses his temper. He said he got mad when his kids are obnoxious. You’re projecting.

Give the kid an iPad and some lunch money. Not all the time just when it’s crunch time.

99% of wives are not harpies that suggest therapy for a partner who occasionally loses their temper. If she's suggesting therapy, his behavior is a problem. Even using his own words, he's angrier than he'd like more than is normal. Extrapolating out that angry people never realize how damaging yelling is to their kids, he's undoubtedly a bigger problem than he realizes.
I mean hey, therapy isnt' for everyone, but OP needs to figure out how to calm down before his wife leaves him

Also eff off for calling my wife a harpy. I don't think she's a harpy. I think she can't get her head around the idea that not everyone likes their extended family and that's okay. And I find her belief that therapy that focuses on how unlikable your extended family is is helpful as opposed to meditation, excercise, getting a good night's sleep or working on your parenting tactics.

This thread has confirmed that some people have very narrow ways of thinking about everything and I haven't read anything that makes me think that digging up my family's sorrow will help my children.

I literally said she ISN'T a harpy. I literally said most wives ARE NOT - I don't think she is AT ALL, I think you're the problem, not her.

Agreed.

[Anonymous]

If all this happened 18 mons ago, why are you/she bringing it up now? Clearly it's still an issue, and hasnt resolved just because your kids can put on their shoes.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It sounds like she's saying you have anger issues and giving you a chance to own them and resolve them.

No, I think she thinks anything that doesn’t work in your life is something that needs to be unpacked.

I have no problem admitting I sometimes lose my temper. But I feel like the conversation with the therapist went like,

Me: sometimes I lose my temper with the kids.

Her: is it often?

Me: no, but more than I would like

Her: well what is usually happening when it happens?

Me: well, I’d say it typically happens on school mornings, if my wife had to leave early and, it’s like 10 minutes until we have to go leave and one kid is crying because they don’t want pizza for lunch and the other is refusing to put his shoes on and also just announced he broke his school issued laptop.

Her: hmmm well, that sound stressful

Me: yes

Her; have you considered maybe waking your children earlier or perhaps getting up earlier yourself or I help avoid these stressful crunch moments

Me: am I really paying for this?

Her: we’ll discuss next week that’s all the time we have


So, yeah,,, it feels like some Paxil and kids who put their shoes on when they’re supposed to would solve most of my problems.

So you don’t handle things well when life doesn’t go your way? That isn’t your kids (or anybody else), that is you. It sounds like you know this. Parenting classes could help. Learning about child development and what is reasonable for different ages could help. If you keep going with therapy I’d focus on how you cope when life doesn’t go your way.

Why do you think I don't understand child development or what is reasonable for different ages?

NP here. The kinds of thing you describe are common, age appropriate behaviors. If you're saying that you would be able to handle situations like an adult if the children didn't act like children, then what you're really saying is that you aren't able to handle situations like an adult. Because part of being an adult is keeping control of our reactions, even when the children act like children.

Does that mean you wouldn't also benefit from strategies to help you gain cooperation from your kids? No, those would be good too. Paxil might be good too. It's certainly worth trying. But as long as you're saying things like this:

You wrote:
So, yeah,,, it feels like some Paxil and kids who put their shoes on when they’re supposed to would solve most of my problems.

Which sounds a whole lot like blaming abuse victims for being abused. Then that's a sign you lack insight into both their development, and the impact of your behavior on them.

Who is being abused?

Identifying a frustrating situation—children can be difficult and there's very little that can be done about it, because, they are children—and thinking about ways to handle the situation behavior (ie, getting up earlier and preparing myself, deep breathing, etc) seems far more useful than pretending that I have some deep-seeded emotional trauma because an objectively stressful situation causes a stress reaction.

I'm not saying you shouldn't address it when you have a reaction or a feeling or a behavior that you don't want to have or that isn't healthy for your relationships... I'm saying, it seems like therapy feels like an excuse to NOT deal with it.

Instead of saying, "I could have handled this situation better by doing X, Y or Z" you're grasping at straws to come up with rationalizations.

I didn't say anyone was abused. I said that "my behavior would get better if the other person's behavior changed" is a classic behavior of abusers. Whether or not what you did was abusive, you're still thinking like an abuser, which might or might not be something you learned from your parents.

No one can tell you how to handle the situation better because you haven't told us what happened. Your inability to describe your own behavior is baffling for someone who claims to have good insight and a desire to change.

Well, there's not one incident, and we don't have endless time, so I'm not sure what you really would like me to say, but from my perspective, I felt like there was a period of time where I was FEELING angrier than normal and got angrier than NORMAL more frequently. Sometimes it resulted in scolding my kids, but I never did anything problematic, but I think it was a situation where I was finding myself unhappy/anxious/irritated/annoyed more often than I usually am, and more than I find acceptable. I don't want to be ticked off every morning—it's not good. I thought I'd give the therapy a whirl because maybe there was SOME magical reason that I felt like I was feeling abnormally uptight, edgy, anxious, unhappy.

I sort of understand what you're saying about an abusive mindset, but I think there's nothing wrong with saying "This situation is a stressful situation. I need to avoid it or develop better coping mechanisms for it". That's just identifying triggers. I could have just as easily used the example that I would find myself unnaturally irritated when my bicycle chain came off the cassette. Maybe I should get a better bike, maybe I should do more maintanance, maybe I should remind myself that bicycling is just a hobby and is it really that big of a deal to have to get off and replace the chain?

People with anger issues or who constantly lose their temper never think what they’re doing is damaging. You are kidding yourself and it sounds like you’re continuing the cycle here. Bike riding isn’t going to help you stop yelling at your kids for doing kid stuff.

Who said he constantly loses his temper. He said he got mad when his kids are obnoxious. You’re projecting.

Give the kid an iPad and some lunch money. Not all the time just when it’s crunch time.

99% of wives are not harpies that suggest therapy for a partner who occasionally loses their temper. If she's suggesting therapy, his behavior is a problem. Even using his own words, he's angrier than he'd like more than is normal. Extrapolating out that angry people never realize how damaging yelling is to their kids, he's undoubtedly a bigger problem than he realizes.
I mean hey, therapy isnt' for everyone, but OP needs to figure out how to calm down before his wife leaves him

Also eff off for calling my wife a harpy. I don't think she's a harpy. I think she can't get her head around the idea that not everyone likes their extended family and that's okay. And I find her belief that therapy that focuses on how unlikable your extended family is is helpful as opposed to meditation, excercise, getting a good night's sleep or working on your parenting tactics.

This thread has confirmed that some people have very narrow ways of thinking about everything and I haven't read anything that makes me think that digging up my family's sorrow will help my children.

I literally said she ISN'T a harpy. I literally said most wives ARE NOT - I don't think she is AT ALL, I think you're the problem, not her.

Agreed.

Sounds like a problem for you to take up in therapy this week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If all this happened 18 mons ago, why are you/she bringing it up now? Clearly it's still an issue, and hasnt resolved just because your kids can put on their shoes.

Because I was reading DCUM and people were talking about therapy so I thought about it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So she has issues with you screaming at your children for… being children, and you don’t care to change anything about your actions, thoughts, behaviours to eliminate this? Because you ‘know yourself’?

I tend to think the people who are most opposed to therapy are the ones who need it the most. Maybe you just haven’t found the right one, a male therapist may be more beneficial for you.

+1.

A good therapist is well worth the expense.

I think not everyone is responsive to talk therapy. It’s like saying there is one way of learning. That would be absurd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If all this happened 18 mons ago, why are you/she bringing it up now? Clearly it's still an issue, and hasnt resolved just because your kids can put on their shoes.

Because I was reading DCUM and people were talking about therapy so I thought about it?

So your wife no longer thinks you need to seek therapy or she does? What is the point of this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If all this happened 18 mons ago, why are you/she bringing it up now? Clearly it's still an issue, and hasnt resolved just because your kids can put on their shoes.

Because I was reading DCUM and people were talking about therapy so I thought about it?

So your wife no longer thinks you need to seek therapy or she does? What is the point of this

it comes up periodically when i talk about stress or when something like father's day rolls around and she thinks its odd that I don't show a lot of emotion about the fact that I don't talk to my dad. and i tell her my spiel that I don't really have anything to say about it, it is what it is. Sad, but I feel like I did the right thing but separating from him and then she invariably says "You HAVE to talk to someone about all that!" But when I prompt her to explain what that means, she can't really explian more than that.

This is about my curiosity/bewilderment at some people's insistence that we all have to talk to someone else about past trauma and that we're not capable of understanding ourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If all this happened 18 mons ago, why are you/she bringing it up now? Clearly it's still an issue, and hasnt resolved just because your kids can put on their shoes.

Because I was reading DCUM and people were talking about therapy so I thought about it?

So your wife no longer thinks you need to seek therapy or she does? What is the point of this

OP here again, you've really just increased my curiosity and bewilderment—this insistence that a lack of interest in therapy must equate to a willful denial of any problem or desire to improve one's self, when it's totally the opposite. I identify and claim my shortcomings and think A LOT about how to improve them. I just can't see how therapy fits in that picture.

I think a therapist makes sense for people who struggle to articulate what bothers them or who are having trouble communicating with a partner or is a child who lacks the vocabulary to discuss how they feel. But I've got a whole list of things I'm trying to better about myself and sometimes I even manage to do it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, you’re a crappy parent in entirely different ways than your parents were crappy, and you’re A-OK with that outcome because you are aware of the differences?

No, I’m not okay with being like my parents. I try to not be a crappy parent - what else am I supposed to do? Does talking about how my father is a highly dysfunctional adult child of an alcoholic who didn’t ever come to any of my sports games REALLY have any bearing on how well I handle my kids not putting their shoes on when we’re late for school? I feel like it’s just adding more stress.

I'll tell you how therapy helped me -- I was also losing my temper at times with my kids, and my therapist said one phrase that stopped it from happening again.

She said -- you are hypervigilant as a result of trauma. You are reacting to something in the past (in my case, my parents and brother, long story) and applying it to your son.

It took her MONTHS to figure this out. That's why your therapist is asking questions like "what is happening when this happens?." She is trying to figure out what is triggering you, and eventually she will figure out what in your past you are really reacting to.

It takes a skilled therapist and an open patient to really get there, but I found it completely life changing. Now I always can see when I am actually reacting because of a trigger from my past, and am much better at just staying present.