Couple’s Therapy with an Abuser? Pt. 1

When COVID started to ramp up, I panicked. My fairly new relationship (8 months) was already rocky enough without the impending doom of a stay at home order of unknown duration. Right away I told my abusive partner that we wouldn’t make it through without therapy and we found ourselves a couples therapist.

Here’s why that’s bad news: a narcissist/toxic person will use therapy to further abuse you.

This was my experience (and could be yours, too):

My ex used therapy as a way to keep me around. If they were doing therapy with me, that meant they were trying, right? They were willing to put in time and money and effort to help fix the relationship, right? Wrong. It was just another (very expensive) tactic to keep me there.

They used therapy as a way to learn more about my own trauma and mental health struggles which they would then use against me in arguments. If they know you’re a middle child who likes attention or that your mom wasn’t around much when you were little, they’ll throw that in your face when you’re feeling insecure. They’ll tell you all of your problems came before them and they have nothing to do with your struggles. Most likely, you’ll start to believe them.

They would show up to therapy with their mask on and come in looking like the loving, supportive partner who is willing to do whatever it takes to save the relationship. They would word things in a way that would make the therapist see them as trying and me as the difficult one. I would be the crying, nervous one and they would be the calm, level-headed one. This contributed to the therapist missing some major red flags.

Stay tuned for part 2: therapy red flags