Contact The Editor
Articles By This Author
Q: My boyfriend and I have been together for six years. I've been in therapy for much of my adult life, and it's helped me grow and change. One of the things I found attractive about my boyfriend early on was that he was in therapy and really liked his therapist. But six years later, I think he hasn't grown at all. He still avoids hard conversations, gets defensive whenever I bring up something about our relationship and seems depressed. Worse, he now quotes his therapist as a kind of shield - saying things like: "My therapist said he thinks you're too hard on me" or "That's just your anxiety talking." Instead of challenging him or helping him grow, his therapist seems to be reinforcing a version of my boyfriend that permits him to stay unavailable and shut down. I want him to continue therapy, but I don't think this therapist is helping.
A: It's hard to watch someone you love refuse to take the steps that could make them happier - or make your relationship healthier. It's especially hard if their refusal to change or grow affects the quality of your life together.
You may be right that therapy is impeding rather than furthering his ability to be close to you in the ways you'd hoped for.
This could be for two reasons. When a therapist hears only one side of the story, individual therapy can sometimes be associated with worse couple dynamics, some studies have shown. In addition, some therapists believe their job is to have an unquestioned alliance with their patient and avoid saying anything that makes the patient feel pushed or criticized.
While that approach can be soothing, it can also perpetuate avoidance and leave problematic patterns intact.
Good therapy sometimes requires opposition - for the therapist to challenge avoidance, defensiveness and self-protective stories. Any friend can affirm why we're right and everyone else is wrong. The therapist's task is harder: to show us how we might be contributing to the very pain we're trying to escape.
Yet criticizing someone's therapist is a little like criticizing their romantic partner: It usually makes them feel defensive and protective. That's especially true if your boyfriend has long felt understood and cared for by his therapist, which - given how many years he's been with him - is probably the case.
While you shouldn't directly challenge his therapy, you can let him know you need something different in the relationship.
• Begin by asking how you can change
One way to start that conversation is by acknowledging how you may have contributed to the problem. This approach tends to make people receptive to feedback more than starting with a complaint or demand.
You might say, "I want us to be able to talk more openly about what's hard between us, and I wonder if there are things I do that make that harder for you?" Or: "You've said your therapist thinks I can be critical. I'm open to that. Can you help me understand what you'd like me to do differently?"
Beginning this way models the accountability you hope to see in him and lowers the likelihood that he'll retreat behind the therapist's authority. Once you've shown receptivity to his feedback, you can describe what you need from him: more engagement, emotional honesty and willingness to take responsibility for his role in the relationship.
• Offer to collaborate
If he's open to it, suggest joining one of his sessions - not to confront the therapist but to offer a perspective that could deepen the work. Some therapists welcome that collaboration; others don't. Either way, the invitation signals that you want to be a respectful part of the solution.
But don't lose sight of the bigger picture. You can't endlessly support someone who may be treating therapy as a weekly permission slip for inertia. If he's depressed, medication might help if he's willing to consider it - but emotional accountability can't be prescribed. Therapy can be life-changing when it helps people move toward connection. It becomes harmful when it turns into a refuge from change.
While your desire for him to see a different therapist is understandable, it might not solve the problem. Some of us send our partners to therapy hoping the therapist will change them in all the ways we want them to change. And individual therapy can be transformative for our relationships - but only if both partners agree on what each person needs to work on.
• Try couples therapy
In my experience, couples therapy is often a better use of time and money when one person is content with the relationship and the other isn't. That's because you can both get support for what needs to change and what might not - individually and as a couple.
Couples therapy can also be more effective because most conflicts persist through unconscious feedback loops. Marital researcher John Gottman and others have found that the "demand-withdraw" or "pursuer-distancer" dynamic is one of the most common predictors of divorce: One person pursues for closeness or reassurance, while the other withdraws or retreats. Each reaction triggers the next, creating a cycle of hurt and misunderstanding that deepens over time. In your case, wanting him to change may cause him to retreat into defensiveness, which can deepen your despair that he'll never be the partner you need. That worry may then lead you to put even more pressure on him. In therapy, the goal would be to make this pattern visible so that both of you can step out of the reflexive push-and-pull and respond with curiosity rather than reactivity.
So, be clear about what you need, but also realistic about what is possible. If he's willing to engage, to question his own comfort, and to see therapy as a place for growth rather than justification, there's hope. If not, you may need to decide whether waiting for him to evolve is still a form of love - or just a habit of hope.
Therapy should strengthen our relationships, not replace them. And if your boyfriend believes that his therapist is the most emotionally responsive person in his life, the problem may not be just in the therapy room - it may be in what's being avoided outside it.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Joshua Coleman, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in the Bay Area and senior fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families. His newest book is "Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict." Buy it in hardcover at a 44% discount! by clicking here or order in KINDLE edition at a 22% discount by clicking here. Sales help fund JWR.)
Previously:
• Will hugs make my 4-year-old son 'soft'? My wife and I argue about this
• My adult children just can't get along. What should I do?
• Radical acceptance can help build emotional resiliency
• A psychologist explains how a new in-law can tear a family apart
• The heartbreak of parent-child estrangement, and how to cope