Your Perfect Partner Went to Therapy

…and so should you.

Despite the shift that has begun towards discussing mental illness and recognising it, taboos regarding it still exist. And one of these sadly seems to be going to therapy. It’s something that can never be mention casually and produces a silence if it is. It’s something to be ‘admitted’, not dropped into a conversation. It’s a surprising statement, one that receives the same kind of shock/horror as a dirty sex act.

People will ask why you go to therapy, as if it isn’t obvious: to work on your mental health! They assume you need a diagnosed disorder, some huge thing to be happening to you. And this can be the case, of course. That’s why I go to therapy, but I also know people who have gone and didn’t receive a fancy title airlifted out of the DSM V.

Because therapy isn’t just for helping people with a personality disorder, an eating disorder or other mental illness. It’s not even about helping you. It’s about showing you how to help yourself. It gives you the tools to not only function better, but to grow aware of yourself, your habits, your flaws, your needs. And this produces an excellent partner for relationships.

1. Self-aware

The process of most therapy trajectories involves taking a step back and examining yourself. Yes, that can include the cliche of talking about your childhood. Because you have no idea how much your childhood has affected you, I guarantee that. Even if you had a great childhood with an abundance of love, you are definitely carrying around few learned coping mechanisms or behaviours. People who have been to therapy have taken the space to learn their flaws, and while they might not be ‘fixed’ of them, they can recognise them, and this is hugely helpful in a relationship.

Example: My partner can struggle with his anger, it’s a way that his own mental health struggles manifest within, just like I have extreme sadness. This means that when we argue, he can often jump to anger, respond very critically or shut me off. But since going to therapy, he can now recognise that this is his instinct reaction, so he now knows that if these feelings brew, to first take a time out. He removes himself from the situation until his adrenaline has calmed down and he can think clearly, and then returns to discuss the matter level-headed.

By growing aware of your weaknesses or learned mechanisms, you can start to tackle them within your relationship as well. You can stop the behaviours when they begin, as during therapy you’ve learned to recognise the initial stages of it, or the symptoms. Everyone has these kind of gut-reactions or flawed thought cycles, but the difference is that those who have gone to therapy can see them more clearly and accept them, so that they can begin to tackle them.

2. Awareness of the other

Alongside this awareness of yourself for such moments, is an awareness of the other in your relationship. This could be that you know what your partner needs in those moments, such as how I know to let him go and calm down, and to do the same myself, so that we can discuss and not argue. But it can also allow your partner who went to therapy to recognise things in you. Either because they discussed you in their sessions (sounds terrifying, I know!) or because they’re growing more observant to such things, they’re examining how the two of you interact.

Example: Part of my BPD involves a huge fear of abandonment. This means that I can go to extremes with my partner, and grow extremely distressed by certain situations. At the start of our relationship, this was really difficult for him to understand, and my intense jealousy or need to start fights but then grow over-emotional would bother him. Since both of us have gone to therapy in the last year, we grew to understand why I react like this. And he came to a point where he is aware that although my feelings are extreme and ‘incorrect’ to the situation, I’m still feeling them. Telling me that the thoughts are ridiculous doesn’t deal with them, it just isolates me. So now he approaches the thoughts with me, works through them, assures me that he isn’t going anywhere and why I should believe this.

If you’ve been to therapy, you are more likely to be someone who acknowledges mental illness and poor mental health, even when you don’t feel it or understand it. You grant your partner an awareness, a space to be themselves and work through it together.

3. Communication

Therapy involves a lot of talking. A lot! I leave my 45 minutes sessions with a dry throat and an exhausted feeling settling over me, but definitely satisfied. If you’re willing to go to numerous sessions and talk about your feelings, I’m guessing that you’ll be more willing to do it within your relationship too. Discussing situations with your partner for five minutes is far easier, and so it won’t be as much of a hassle.

Example: As mentioned in the previous example, I sometimes need my partner to work through my negative thought cycle with me, to help me combat it by releasing it out of the confines of my mind. He’s now willing to do this, eager to help me reduce my inner struggle. And he knows how difficult it can be to communicate mental health, so he is patient and guides me.

4. Open

You still get a lot of people who judge therapy and mental illness. I try to surround myself with positive people so I can forget that, only to receive comments on a Medium post or sit next to the wrong friend of a friend at a dinner party. You don’t want to be with someone who judges therapy and poor mental health. Because maybe you’re fine now, but one day something could happen, or you can reach different places. And you want to be with someone who respects your decision to seek help, because it is a great decision. You want someone who understands lower days, so that when you have yours, they’re not inconvenienced by it, they’re supporting you. The people who have had the darkest days, who have struggled to leave their bed, they’re the ones that are open to listen to you and will never judge.

Example: Describing your symptoms can make you feel ridiculous. Saying you feel heavy or prickly. Or that you don’t want to eat because you need to control your body, or to punish it. I feel lucky in that I have a partner who will listen, who won’t judge even if they can’t understand. That they won’t ask “why?”, they’ll ask “what can I do?”

Get yourself a “what can I do?”

5. Empathetic

I’m not saying that people who don’t go to therapy can’t be empathetic, but it’s just a trait I’ve noticed among people who have struggled with their mental health. They know what it’s like to struggle, and so they want to understand, and want to help you. But also, they want to support your good moments. Only those who have seen the darkness can truly appreciate the light. They’ll be there for good and bad, and they’ll be your cheerleader throughout.

Example: Things that feel huge to someone with a mental illness can seem ridiculous to others. Whilst cooking or deciding what to get in the supermarket seems like a small, even fun decision to me, I know that to my partner it can be really overwhelming. It can cause a fight or flight response, and whilst I don’t feel this way, he does and that is valid. When I’m struggling with social anxiety and just can’t see other people, or a depressive episode hits during a night out, my boyfriend knows what these things can be like, and he knows that I need to go home.

Going to therapy makes you validate your own experiences, and thereby understand the validity of others, even ones you don’t have.

6. Committed

Working on your mental health requires a huge commitment, you can’t go to one or two therapy sessions and think “Hey, presto! I’m done!”. It requires months, if not years. So they know long-term. They’ve had a long-term relationship with their therapist, and so they’ll be likely to be ready to have one with you. They can put in work to something, they know the value in waiting and giving effort to something.

Example: At the start of our relationship, we were deeply in love, but we were just never ‘partners’. And it bothered me, as I felt I sacrificed to our relationship and he never would. But three years later, and a lot of hours in therapy for the both of us, and I can truly say that we are partners. Which is something I had to grow into as well, to understand that sacrifice isn’t love. Now we are considerate of each other, we put in time for each other, but we also focus on respecting the other as an individual. He won’t skip an event that makes me uncomfortable, but he will message me at least once during it, just a quick reminder of “Hey, I love you”.

7. Compromise

If you’ve reached a place where you’re willing to seek help, it usually means you’ve had it pretty tough. You know that life isn’t perfect, and that there are struggles you have to overcome. And to seek help, you’re willing to overcome them, you’re not just sitting around and waiting for change. You compromise with your own life, you give us the self-sabotaging behaviours that feel good in the moment, you do the work to become better, even though it can feel worse. And if you bring that into a relationship, you’re a true team. You give, you take, you grow together.

Example: I used to really struggle when we were separated for more than a few days, as he would fly home annually for at least four weeks. Looking back, it was abandonment issues and my unstable sense of security, pinning my self-worth on someone but struggling to know where to put it when they’re gone. We’d argue a lot, as I wanted him to communicate more, message me more often, while he preferred being in the moment, and hates being tied to his phone. But after a lot of communication and focusing on their feelings and needs, we found the perfect compromise without even forcing it. He’ll make sure to send a quick message sometimes, just a reminder that he is thinking about me, as well as little updates, what he plans to do in a day. That was all I needed, to feel like a part of his day, in his thoughts. And in return, I put my phone away, learn to distract myself and give him the space he needs too.

Summary

Your perfect partner went to therapy, because they became their better self there. They discovered themselves, the good and the bad, and so they enter the relationship with wide eyes.

From therapy, they became better at:

1. Self-awareness

2. Awareness

3. Communication

4. Openness

5. Empathy

6. Commitment

7. Compromise

This isn’t to say that someone has to go to therapy before they meet you, has to grow alone or you can’t grow together. You can grow as a couple, you can deal with your private pains whilst being with someone. You just need to want to get better, or to support them. You need to respect them as an individual and as a partner.

And not everyone with mental health issues will have developed these traits yet, it’s a long road and a difficult one. That app you use for fun, could spiral into an eating disorder. Those impulsive behaviours could manifest into BPD. You just don’t know what your own future holds.

My leaving point? Don’t write someone off because they went to therapy, see it as a positive trait because they actually went, while too many don’t.

Therapy is nothing to be ashamed about, so go ahead and name drop your therapist. Next time something comes up in a conversation, feel comfortable saying “Hey, my therapist says the same thing!”. And who knows, maybe someone will respond “Mine too!”

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