Public Forum I resent that he pays money to communicate with someone else when he doesn't communicate with me.

Question:  My boyfriend of 4 years has been seeing a psychotherapist for the last 8 months and there is no change in his behaviours or attitude. Apart from the financial issues involved I resent that he pays money to communicate with someone else when he doesn't communicate with me. He thinks that I am jealous - it's more like a feeling of betrayal that he refuses to talk to me about anything. This is causing problems in our relationship and whenever we try to discuss these issues it always ends in a major argument.

I feel betrayed by his reluctance to share anything with me and he feels that he is being restricted by my reluctance to support his therapy. I feel like the therapy is more important to him than working on saving our relationship and we always end up in a stalemate and neither of us can move past these issues. Is it normal for partners to feel this way? How do we get through this? I want him to give up for a while (not for good), he insists on going even at the expense of our relationship.

Answer (1) I find it impossible and potentially dangerous to attempt to assess this situation without meeting with both of you and perhaps also with your boyfriend's therapist! As you say that you feel betrayed and that you believe that he is using therapy to avoid facing issues with you, my suggestion is that you go together to see an experienced couples therapist to help you resolve this issue. Failing that, or perhaps even in addition to that if you can afford it, I suggest that you see a therapist yourself to help you decide what would be the most productive course of action for you to take under the circumstances. I wish you well.

Answer provided by Donald Marmara, Somatic Psychotherapist

Answer (2)  It’s impossible to build a mental map of your relationship when your partner doesn’t let you in. Mind reading won’t take you far. We require an accurate map in order to navigate the tides of intimacy and to know where we stand with our loved one in times of sorrow and of joy. When a stranger is getting a big look in at your expense, the ground can feel slippery; the map obscured and you’d be unusual if you didn’t feel ripped off as well. From your point of view you are in a triangle. Some intimate conversation has been outsourced to a therapist, barring your access to all that is going on inside your loved one. The therapy has become in effect a third party and a new exit from intimacy that both of you agree to argue about and at the same time, feel yuk arguing about it. It’s unlikely to be the real issue, but at this stage it feels real; is perceived as a threat and has purchased another stale mate.

Anyone could discount the impact of his therapy on your relationship with him by denying your experience and blaming you for feeling threatened, but neither discount will secure a relationship built on respect, friendship and love. The current issue is probably the latest escalation of a pattern that has dogged you both from the outset. Each new version of the pattern erodes trust and safety and pushes owning and addressing the core issues further away. Each of you contribute equally to maintianing the trouble as if trouble is what binds you. Many give up on a relationship at this point - too much like hard work - only to go on to create a new version of the old pattern in the next one. My guess is that both of you have co-operated over the last 4 years in producing a now predictable disengagement, where one ends up the pursuer (mostly you, ‘tell me what’s going on with you, come closer’) and the other the withdrawer (mostly him, ‘I’ll work it out on my own, give me some space’). It’s a pattern also described as fuser and isolater and clearly described here.

Weird to think that our exits from intimacy are co-operative behaviours like a dance routine, that is defined by and refined in our peer groups and families of origin. ‘Men often sacrifice their relationship to hold onto their sense of self. Women often sacrifice their sense of self to stabilize their relationship.’ Schnarch  If all of the above sounds right, then you two may benefit from pre-marital education and coaching. May I suggest you start with this study cycle on my web site.

What’s his take on this? Is he a bit scared showing tenderness and vulnerability with you? Of willingly exposing his heart to the risk of hurt or of being controlled by you as he struggles to maintain a sense of self, up close? There’s an edge in getting close with love, when one can experience confusion about where I end and you begin. I wonder if the kindest explanation of your partner’s insistence on his therapy at the risk of his relationship, is that at some level he knows he has to grow; develop more self-differentiation and learn how to care for himself, up close with you. He may sense that postponing his growth will keep the relationship going around and around in circles, and fears that he can’t make that leap in growth with you. It’s difficult to articulate that knowledge when you are just in the process of learning about it.

How about the therapist? The kindest interpretation of the psychotherapist’s role is that of an unwitting participant in a triangle. However, in some jurisdictions it is a criminal offense to provide individual psychotherapy which concurrently alienates (knowingly or unknowingly) the affection of a marital partner. A bit draconian for my tastes given that I’m not suggesting the emotional or verbal abuse described, for example, at www.therapy-abuse.net nor that you and he are married. Rather, it is the very provision of effective, individual psychotherapy that can be hazardous to an intimate relationship. That hazard can suddenly become grounds for a health complaint by an aggrieved, wounded partner. If the therapist hasn’t the backing of ongoing, clinical supervision for their decision to provide individual therapy to one member of a couple, they can still get done by the health complaints system as if they were criminals. Many therapists directly invite and re-invite the partners of their clients to come in over the course of individual therapy. Still, some of those partners refuse to attend until after it is too late and the horse has bolted. Were you invited in at the outset?

Your partner and his therapist have engaged a change process, whether you see the results of it or not, that materially affects your well being, and you are feeling worse. In the absence of treatment support for you as a couple, alienation of affection is a known risk of the change processes that individual psychotherapy provides. Numbers of partners have and do feel the way you do and that ‘normality’ doesn’t make the ‘normal’ omission of couple support okay. Your distress is foreseeable and it is not okay. As a relationship coach, I think it is wise to initiate a prior and thorough assessment of a prospective client’s intimate relationship and its capacity to integrate the changes induced by effective therapy. We cannot ‘treat’ clients in isolation, it goes against all that we know about the ecology of intimacy and the inter-connectedness of all life. I recommend therapists insist as a condition of providing therapy (for their own professional safety, self-care and for the integrity of their treatment plan) that their client’s current partner attend the first or second sessions and also attend on a regular follow up basis. That is part of our duty of care when offering a potent therapy with only one member of a couple. For an idea of best practice in these matters consider my new client page.  If those joint sessions have not occured, you can choose to call his therapist, raising your concerns and asking for a joint session to safeguard the relationship from further injury. BUT! Warning! Without your partner’s blessing, such contact could be perceived as an invasion by you and if it takes place, of betrayal by his therapist if h/she hasn’t cleared that contact with him before talking to you; resulting in a further escalation of the fuser isolater routine. Triangles! Aaarggghh...

Answer provided by Peter Fox, Clinical Psychologist