Does your partner come to you about their struggles? If I don’t ask he won’t tell me…
We are about 8/9 months into this after our d-day. You can click on my profile and read my previous posts for the full story. I’m 24 and my PA boyfriend is 25…
We have both been going to individual therapy (mine I’ve been seeing for years before this), and him with a CSAT/really great professional. I myself have gotten way better with the situation itself. I still have triggers and have not fully accepted everything, but it’s no longer constantly on my mind like in the beginning.
Throughout this whole time of me staying with him and both of us choosing to work through this, we agreed that once it was appropriate in his process, I would need him to keep me updated on his progress, struggles, urges, etc. so that I didn’t feel completely in the dark.
The issue is… that has basically never happened.
Every single conversation we’ve had about this topic has been initiated by me. Every check-in, every hard conversation, every question. He has never once come to me on his own to say “hey, I’ve been struggling,” “therapy brought something up,” “here’s how I’m doing,” or even proactively reassure me. If I ask direct questions, he answers honestly. But only if I ask. He will not bring anything up himself.
At first, I tried to be patient because I know this is hard, uncomfortable, and shame-inducing for him. But at this point, it feels like I’m carrying all of the emotional weight and responsibility of keeping this topic alive. I’m constantly trying to figure out if I’m asking too much, asking too often, being annoying, or making him feel policed. Meanwhile, this was something we explicitly agreed he would take more initiative on so it wasn’t all falling on me.
Now to add to it, he hasn’t gone to therapy in about 4 weeks. At first it was scheduling conflicts and him being sick (which was true), but now he told me he hasn’t scheduled because he feels like he “hasn’t needed it” and it’s expensive.
This instantly made me anxious. Since he doesn’t openly talk to me about this issue, therapy was honestly the main thing helping me feel secure that it was still being actively worked on and that someone else was helping him process/manage it. I’m scared he feels better right now and thinks the problem is resolved, when in reality he’s only been in therapy for about 7 months and there’s still deeper work to do.
I don’t necessarily need him in therapy every single week forever, but I do need reassurance, openness, signs he’s actively managing this, and confidence that if things started getting hard again he would recognize it and get help.
Has anyone been through something similar? Did your partner stop therapy or avoid proactive communication? How did you handle the imbalance of feeling like you’re carrying all the emotional labor of recovery/accountability?