Posted by bookgurl99 on March 19, 2004, at 10:21:39
Hey,
So, I've been to 3 couples therapy sessions with my girlfriend.
I was initially impressed with the professionalism of the therapist, but I'm feeling like she likes my girlfriend and cares more about her issues than she likes me or cares about mine.
The first session, we set up what we wanted to discuss. My gf wanted us work on neatness issues and living well together. My goal was for us to have sex more often, and for the two of us to communicate about her sexual abuse issues.
So far, 2 of the 3 sessions seem to largely focus on what my girlfriend needs. We've hardly discussed what I needed to discuss.
I have a feeling that the therapist is more "impressed" with my gf's career achievements and how she seems. The therapist doesn't know about my past accomplishments -- creating a creative writing scholarship, working as an Americorps VISTA for a year, getting published -- only about my currently unimpressive job and that I'm a messy person. Plus, while my gf stays thin easily, I have hypothyroidism and am quite overweight at the moment. She's simply cuter than me. Given these factors, I feel like the therapist probably views me as a lazyass -- which is the last thing I am.
Meanwhile, my girlfriend lost a job as the head of a nonprofit group last year and has really struggled with it. She has a degree. The therapist really lights up when my gf talks, probably because she can relate to her as a 'professional,' and sees me as a loser leech girlfriend.
Of the two sessions, one was mostly about my gf's career issues and how she can attend counseling to help narrow down her goals. We also talked about neatness a bit. The second one was more of the same, with a little more empahsis on my messiness.
When we finally discussed intimacy issues -- in the last 5 minutes of session 3 -- I felt brushed off. For example, the therapist asked how things are going in the intimacy dept. I said, "Well, there's been more of it." The therapist said "good!" and I said, "But -- " meaning to elaborate, and the therapist cut me off with "Let's take the good with the good." I just swallowed my words.
I feel like this is going to keep going this way -- with the therapist assuming that I'm the bad guy and minimizing my concerns due to my lesser level of career achievement.
We made an appt. for session 4, and I want to go. But what do I do about these feelings? Does everyone feel this way in couples therapy?
poster:bookgurl99
thread:325994
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040313/msgs/325994.html