Can't be her therapist

[MrPinkFiction]

Hey everyone! I'm having a lot of trouble in my relationship with my best friend and girlfriend who has serious unresolved mental health problems. We're both in our early twenties. I'm trying my best to help her through periods of intense negative emotions, happening very consistently for about half a year now. I'm really afraid that a breakup seems inevitable if things keep getting worse, but it would be devastating for both of us and possibly dangerous for her.

 

She doesn't have any close friends to talk to. Neither do I. My family is too distant to begin to understand how I feel, let alone how she feels. She has tried talking to her family, but they were only of limited help and often made her feel worse.

 

I can help sometimes, sometimes by talking through her feelings with her and sometimes by distracting her or showering her with love and affection. But I'm not trained as a therapist. She has said many times that I'm too dumb to really help her, especially at addressing the root issues. I'm not very emotionally intelligent, better than a typical guy maybe, but almost all of that I learned from her anyway. She tells me I tend to be mechanical, cold and dull when we talk about her feelings, and she gets angry. But it seems like a normal conversation to me. Fairly often, something dumb I did is what set off her reaction. Even if not, I try to hug her and comfort her but she often pushes me away because of something I said wrong, or didn't say enough. Or if she lets me comfort her, it doesn't really go anywhere and she still feels bad. We usually resolve by the end of the night but I can tell I didn't do enough. She can't rely on me to help her beyond basic superficial comforting, and often reminds me of that after she's been in a bad state for hours and I haven't done enough to help. In these states, she pushes me away and I'm often the enemy.

 

On normal days, she tells how much she relies on me for the little support I provide. She loves me and tells me I'm perfect her, and that she's lucky to be with me. I love her too and I can't imagine loving anyone as much as her. She's my first true love. People say we seem strangely perfect for each other. Definitely more trusting, more close, than most of the relationships around us. We were good friends before dating, now we've been going for over two years. Of course I know she has some problems with who I am. She says she dumbed herself down after dating me, since I don't have deep conversation (she means emotional depth) and I'm introverted, so our social life is not active enough for her to feel good as an ENFP. I make stupid mistake a lot. I just feel like I'm reaching the end of my patience when she's in a mood and demands more than I can provide. Since she's the one facing difficulties, my own loss of patience makes me feel disgusting and inadequate. She thinks it's easy to do more and I just don't try hard enough. I don't think so. More and more often, I feel deeply uncomfortable when she's having a hard time. I could never talk to her this candidly without causing terrible insecurity for her, not to mention she would be justifiably pissed that I would make it about me when she is the one with a history of serious emotional trauma.

 

She started seeing a therapist at college every two weeks a couple months ago. She's gone 3 times now. The therapist seems to have helped her understand a few things things that I wouldn't have understood, like that her self harm is a way to validate her intense emotions by making them tangible. The therapist also said my gf's feelings of anxiety, that take control of her thoughts and her body, are an overreaction by her instincts, putting her in a fight or flight mode. Her advice is to recognize that feeling as nothing more than that. Overall, I can't tell if this stuff is actually helping. She hasn't exploded or self-harmed AFAIK since therapy began. But the downward spirals and feelings still come up almost daily. That might be happening even more often now, not sure yet.

 

Before going on, our background and situation is important. We're seniors in college. She's from Pakistan, while I'm a white American guy. Jobs are obviously very hard to find for both of us but much harder for her as an immigrant. So her position is precarious. She doesn't want to end up back in Pakistan, where she can't stand the culture of women constantly being judged from all sides. There are not many career opportunities in tech for her. And she would be close to her mom.

 

Her mom was sometimes physically but more emotionally abusive. Every time they're together my gf ends up breaking down. Her mom has BP and attempted suicide at our age. Her dad is totally unconcerned. When I visited with her, she says my presence toned everyone down... It is painful to imagine what it would be like without me there. Family is important to her, so she feels guilty that part of her tries to distance herself from her mom, as well as her mom's sister and mother, who also tend to gaslight and have their individual types of conflict. These are the women in her life, and she expects she might end up like them.

 

She's also been telling me recently, for the first time, that she feels pretty often like she doesn't want to keep living. Contemplates suicide in an abstract way but doesn't ideate about really doing it. She's scared she might do it someday if she gets a soul-sucking job after graduation and loses me. Or doesn't get a job and has to move back to Pakistan. She feels like she doesn't have a purpose, and her will to do anything can easily fade. She will spend all of her free time scrolling on her phone, instead of reading or learning or creating, even though these are her passions. She would want to go out hang out with people but her circle of friends has disappeared over time. It's actually a pattern where she gets close friends and they eventually abandon her. She's also trying to explore her attraction toward women but keeps getting rejected. I wish she would connect with other people. Even with me in her life she feels very alone.

 

I hope you can tell that I love her intensely. We are in many ways closer than your average couple. If it weren't for these mental health issues, we would certainly be perfect as long-term partners. But in some ways this is driving a divide between us. Sometimes I think that I should take responsibility for living my best life and leave her, as horrible as that feels to admit. I can't stand being so cruel. I don't know how much it would hurt her, but I am something like the only steady source of positivity in her life. I also don't know I would be throwing away the best relationship of my life, and if I need to wake the **** up in some way to help her resolve these issues. This is definitely the best and closest relationship with any person I have ever had in my life by far. But I don't know if her health can ever be resolved or what is going on deep inside her mind. Finally I could never be so selfish. She has made me grow so much and become far more satisfied with who I am today than I ever was before we dated. I am without a doubt a much better person after becoming close with her. She is a profound poet and artist, extremely empathetic, adorable and sweet, smart and driven, and has a family that I feel closer to than my own. But she has for the most part lost touch with the sides of herself that I am in love with and that she loves about herself. And nothing I can say or do seems to help bring it back.

[ExpatInItaly]

I have a hard time understanding how others say you're strangely perfect together...unless they don't know what's actually happening inside your relationship. My guess is they don't know how rude she is to you, and how beaten down emotionally you are over this. This is not a healthy relationship, OP.

 

She has issues you cannot resolve. You're right about that. It's incredibly unreasonable of her to expect you (or any partner) to do so. It also sounds as though she's guilting you into staying with her, to rescue her from a life she doesn't want to return to in Pakistan. That's also very unfair of her, especially considering how poorly she treats you. That emotionally abusive tendency she says her mom has? She's doing it to you, too. I would wager it's the reason she has no friends, either. The common denominator is her, and she sounds like not a very nice person. She calls it abandonment but it's probably more that these people sense how toxic she is and choose not to engage.

 

You are also going to run into problems if she starts dating women and you are left in the dust.

 

OP, I would strongly encourage you to ask yourself why you tolerate this and why you stay. And no, love is not enough. What you are describing here is codependency and it's not sustainable. You are already clearly (understandably) very unhappy yet you're convincing yourself this is love. Where did you get this definition of love? Is she your first real girlfriend? You sound desperate to hang on to her and are essentially deluding yourself into believing she's all that and a bag of chips. I get the sense you don't believe you can get anyone else.

Edited December 12, 2018 by ExpatInItaly

[basil67]

I can help sometimes, sometimes by talking through her feelings with her and sometimes by distracting her or showering her with love and affection. But I'm not trained as a therapist. She has said many times that I'm too dumb to really help her, especially at addressing the root issues. I'm not very emotionally intelligent, better than a typical guy maybe, but almost all of that I learned from her anyway. She tells me I tend to be mechanical, cold and dull when we talk about her feelings, and she gets angry. But it seems like a normal conversation to me. Fairly often, something dumb I did is what set off her reaction. Even if not, I try to hug her and comfort her but she often pushes me away because of something I said wrong, or didn't say enough. Or if she lets me comfort her, it doesn't really go anywhere and she still feels bad. We usually resolve by the end of the night but I can tell I didn't do enough. She can't rely on me to help her beyond basic superficial comforting, and often reminds me of that after she's been in a bad state for hours and I haven't done enough to help. In these states, she pushes me away and I'm often the enemy.

 

On normal days, she tells how much she relies on me for the little support I provide. She loves me and tells me I'm perfect her, and that she's lucky to be with me. I love her too and I can't imagine loving anyone as much as her. She's my first true love. People say we seem strangely perfect for each other. Definitely more trusting, more close, than most of the relationships around us. We were good friends before dating, now we've been going for over two years. Of course I know she has some problems with who I am. She says she dumbed herself down after dating me, since I don't have deep conversation (she means emotional depth) and I'm introverted, so our social life is not active enough for her to feel good as an ENFP. I make stupid mistake a lot. I just feel like I'm reaching the end of my patience when she's in a mood and demands more than I can provide. Since she's the one facing difficulties, my own loss of patience makes me feel disgusting and inadequate. She thinks it's easy to do more and I just don't try hard enough. I don't think so. More and more often, I feel deeply uncomfortable when she's having a hard time. I could never talk to her this candidly without causing terrible insecurity for her, not to mention she would be justifiably pissed that I would make it about me when she is the one with a history of serious emotional trauma.

 

Yes, you are right. You can't be her therapist. You SHOULDN'T be her therapist. And I feel very sad that you've been accepting her bad behaviour.

 

Mr Pink, have a look at the bolded parts. I don't care what's wrong with her or how suicidal she is, this is completely unacceptable and you need to stand up to her. She is toxic to you. If she gets mad at you for placing boundaries as to how she treats you, view it as yet another toxic outburst

 

If you need to make the breakup easier, next time she tells you how much you can't support her, simply tell her that it's clear she needs someone who can meet her needs and she's made it abundantly clear that you're not that person. When you go, call her therapist when you're out the door and let her know what's going on.

[kendahke]

She has said many times that I'm too dumb to really help her.

 

I'd have left her alone to go find a psychiatrist and figure it out.

 

But after reading the rest of the negative comments, I'm wondering if there is something you're getting fed by her negativity, considering you don't appear to stand up for yourself. I'd tell her the next time something like that comes out of her mouth will be the last time she sees me---and then make good on that promise when it does.

Edited December 12, 2018 by kendahke

[DrNo1962]

The title says it all.

 

You should never be your S.O's therapist no matter the situation.

[preraph]

It sounds like she didn't have good enough role models in her parents to even know how to live a happy life. She needs to go to therapy more often. I promise you, this is above your pay grade and has nothing much to do with you other than you are one of the many things that can trigger her moods. You cannot take this on and just need to tell her to step up the therapy. Good luck. She needs to be on meds, too. So if she's one of those who is against meds, you can get yourself educated and convince her otherwise. Then if she won't help herself, I can see why you'd want out.

[Larry56]

Do you find you tend to jump to explain how she can "fix" her problems?

 

With women who have had a rough childhood (and just regular women) I tend to just do the following in a conversation. I answer them with;

 

"Oh sorry to hear that"

"That sucks"

"Damn"

"That's rough"

"I'm sorry you went through that"

 

and so on and so on. I don't try to offer a solution to a woman's problems.

 

When i was in my 20's I would always try to do the whole fix-it the 'man way'. I actually had one ex literally shove the book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' in my lap to read she was getting so annoyed. I never ended up reading that particular book but I did find end up reading other books like it.

[mortensorchid]

I think what happened was that we were talk showed to death in our childhoods / teens where we think we should be open and honest with everyone and everything around us. If you are like me in any way, once you have been burned or hurt by so called "friends" you keep certain things to yourself. You have to have a certain air of mystery about yourself, because people take things about you (even trivial things) and use them against you.

 

As for why we do this? It's because the world, like you said, is full of lonely people. You adjust to these things as you get older, as the want and need to socialize with others goes down for a variety of reasons (you change, the people around you change, your circumstances change, the places you go to for entertainments change, etc.) and you like your alone time more. I have grown to like my isolated weekends (I call them cabin in the woods weekends where I don't see or talk to anyone). But to cure loneliness? Then she should see a therapist rather than vent to you. Tell her this, maybe she'll listen.

[guest569]

That poor woman. It’s hard to be in a relationship when you are suicidal and hate yourself, hard to love and care for someone when you feel that way. I really feel for her and also feel for you because it’s tough having to pick up the pieces, and being the only person in her life (aside from the therapist). I believe she keeps looking to others to fix her, and that is why they abandon her. It’s a tough gig and it is not your role as a partner. You’re doing the right thing be supporting her in ways that you can, as any other partner would, listening to her and loving her. You can’t fix her though.

 

It also sounds there are problems as a couple with communication. There are diff personalities but she can go and do things without you. Instead she blames you for being too introverted. She lashes out and maybe doesn’t feel heard. I think Larry has mentioned above, about listening versus fixing..curious to hear your views on that. Sometimes people just need to talk. I think she is really hurtful to say that you’re too dumb to talk to. She sounds resentful and dissatisfied and this seems to be a separate issue to her mental health problems. Makes me wonder if she just sticks around cause there is no one else. Terrible thought, but she is not treating you right.