Have you ever successfully convinced your partner to get therapy/professional help?
7 year relationship here.
My partner has some childhood trauma that she has supposedly worked through. She used to deal with serious bouts of just feeling… so terrible. She used to drink a lot to get rid (realllllly really affected me and our relationship). She wasn’t physically abusive, not even emotionally… but it felt like something similar. Anyone with an alcoholic partner knows what I mean.
Anyway, I begged her to get help, which she did. I meant therapy but instead she talked to a life coach, who was a friend of hers. She said it helped so I just supported her through it and she realized a lot about herself. Now, something happened about 2 years ago that was really traumatizing for her. In her words, “not nearly as bad as my childhood” but enough that she felt icky about it.
I didn’t know about it until 2 days ago when she told me that she always feels anxious around the middle week of the month (like the 10th to the 20th of every month) for the last 2 years. And I realized, by checking our past text messages, that we ALWAYS had problems around this time every single month for the last 2 years. It was a cycle. She would get distant, I’d ask if I did something wrong, if anything was wrong at all, and she would say no. So I would just still try to show her as much love as I could (we’re LDR).
I brought up the possibility of therapy again but she shut me down, again, and said she knows herself best and that she will get over it in her own way. But me, being her partner who has seen just how much her own way does not work, I am skeptical 🥲 And scared because of our past. I know I can’t push therapy or help to someone who doesn’t want it but idk what to do… Is it selfish that I’m thinking of how this affects me and our relationship? I’m just tired of being hurt by someone who is hurt