My partner needs to go to therapy. He's experiencing a difficult transitional period in his life and keeps denying getting the help he needs to work through his emotions. I am a strong proponent of therapy and have been in and out of sessions consistently since I was a child. My partner is wholeheartedly supportive of me going to therapy and shares how proud he is of me for making my mental health a priority.
As someone who has known him for almost ten years, I am confident that therapy would suit him well, at least during this phase in our lives. I have suggested the idea, but he brushes therapy off as something he does not need. I don't know how to help him. I know at some point he needs to help himself, but it's hard to be sympathetic to his needs when he isn't trying to make a change in his life.
Signed,
Concerned Fiancée
It took me five years to step foot in therapy. My first session was a couple of weeks ago, after trying to get myself there every month. I understood that therapy would be helpful, that it would help me process the baggage of time. Yet, the bad would pass, like a painful dream, and the good would come rolling in. Once I felt better, once peace settled in, I scoffed at the me that thought I needed help. I knew how to psychoanalyze myself. I knew how to articulate how I felt, coming up with scrappy solutions or aversions for what haunted me. I dubbed myself the most rational girl in the world.
Part of me always recognized I needed to sit on that lumpy couch and trust that maybe someone would see things I hid from myself. What pushed me to finally book a consultation was my friend from high school. We had been exchanging voice memos when he shared how much better he was feeling after being medicated. Listen, psychiatry and therapy are two different things, but seeing him do well urged me to get up and do right by myself. Now, I am still in the early days, so I cannot quantify any change. But for me, something that seemed like an obvious option eluded me for years.
This exposition is to explain that therapy is and always will be a personal choice. No matter what you believe, your partner has to be the one who decides to start therapy. Currently, the consensus is that we all need therapy. It's a hard time nationally and globally. Everything feels bleak, and hope is rare. Social media has also promoted therapy, leading most of us to adopt therapy terms in casual settings. Therapy is now, conceptually, accessible. Yet, it is unfair to try to universalize traditional types of therapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy and psychoanalytic therapy. What works for you might not work for your partner.
The best way to help your partner is to listen to him and his needs, not what you think he needs. It never hurts to present options, like therapy, but it's about balancing your desire to help with an understanding of his autonomy. It is hard for people to accept things in themselves that they easily support in others. Your partner’s hesitation does not come from a disbelief in therapy and its benefits, but rather, a presumption that he does not need therapy. There are other ways to work through negative emotions that are not through medicalization.
You cannot get your partner into therapy. It is his choice. I encourage you to advocate for therapy, yet you have to make sure these conversations are between equals. Your differing perspectives make you stronger. Explain to your partner why you think therapy would be good for him, while letting him know that you respect any decision he makes, that this urgency is rooted in a place of care. Just because he does not want to go to therapy, it does not mean he does not want to help himself.
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Alejandra Agustin is a 21-year-old UF English and anthropology senior.
