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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It sounds like she's saying you have anger issues and giving you a chance to own them and resolve them.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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

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:

[quote=You] 
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.  
[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.  [/quote]

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. [b]Sometimes it resulted in scolding my kids, but I never did anything problematic, [/b]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?[/quote]
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.[/quote]

[b]Who said he constantly loses his temper.[/b] 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.[/quote]

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 [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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

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