[pmbm]

My wife often recognizes that therapy is necessary for my healing, but sometimes the fact that we spend a lot of money on it makes her crazy. We receive a large check on the 2nd Friday of every month, and the last week before that Friday is often fraught with money woes, like do we do with out or do we take money out of savings.

So, I'm functioning much better now than I have been in the past year, but my wife has issues with the fact that I went for 10 years with no medication and no therapy and was perfectly fine and happy and functioning, and then I was triggered very unintentionally by a friend telling a story, and it's been like I ended up at the bottom of the deepest, darkest well in the world and I've been clawing at the walls of that well and trying to climb out a centimeter or two at the time, and even though the opening is very far away still, I can see a glimmer of light and hear the voices of people encouraging me. I had to stop working. I was depressed, I was anxious. When I arrived at work in the morning, I was not able to get out of the car to go inside without somebody on the phone telling me I could do it. I couldn't talk on the phone and take the kind of notes I was supposed to because I was often dissociated or having flashbacks or I was too tired because I wasn't sleeping. I went back to therapy, and have slowly gotten to a point where I can function to take care of my children and do most of the stuff a housewife does, but when it comes to paperwork, there are some days where I can concentrate enough to do it, and some days where I just cannot. My wife does not get that. And there are some days where I can't even get the laundry done. It makes things really hard.

So, I need to go to therapy for a bunch of reasons. The first is to continue healing from a horrific childhood. The second is because I applied for disability and how disabled could I be if I didn't go to therapy. The third is because if I don't have a place to leave all of the crazy stuff, it stops me from being able to function appropriately.

Today, my wife was like why don't you just skip therapy this week? And I was totally taken aback. She knows when I don't go to therapy on a regular basis, I tend to become an absolute asshole. All of the stuff I end up trying to keep inside starts coming out sideways. She seems to think that therapy , is a luxury and that because I like my T, that I like going to therapy. I really do not like going and wish I could save the huge amount of extra money a month, so I wouldn't feel guilty about needing a new pair of jeans or going to lunch with my friends. I am so much better than I was six months ago, but it's because I found a therapist I clicked with and because I actually go on an often enough basis.

I'm just really frustrated with the lack of understanding today. My wife probably is too.

How do other people's significant others deal with your need for therapy and the cost?

[Leah123]

I think I'm just very fortunate that my husband doesn't question my judgement: I tell him it's important to me, and he sees it's helping and based on that, he's consistently encouraging when I ask him if he minds or if he thinks it is worthwhile.

With all that said though: I manage the finances in my household, and he hasn't asked me the specific cost, so he only has a general idea of the spending. I've simply told him it's very expensive and he knows how often I'm in session.

I do struggle greatly myself with the expense, but would be hard pressed to give it up. Even cutting back has been very difficult. I know it's frustrating, like you said, for both of you, but it sounds like you've made great strides in six months: there's no reason to think your improvement won't continue and you might think of this level of expenditure as short term: you two won't always have money worries because of therapy, and you will both have the benefit of a stronger healthier happier you.

[HazelGirl]

Could you talk to your T about reducing your rate?

Or just ask her to be patient until the disability goes through?

My husband grouses about the cost of therapy on a regular basis. I finally got so tired of it that I went to a different bank and opened my own checking account that's just for my therapy, and I put a minimum of one session cost in it from each paycheck. If I work any overtime, I put my overtime pay in it too. Now that he can't "see" the money coming out of our joint account, he doesn't mention it as much. Although the other day he told me he didn't like that I paid for talking about my dreams. He doesn't understand dream work at all, and won't let me explain. Sometimes I think he feels 'cheated on' emotionally or something because I am very emotionally invested in my therapy. Recently I just HAD to talk to somebody about how hurt I was feeling over that whole thing with t not having a professional will (she since resolved that problem for me thank goodness!) so I talked to my husband about it, and he did not get it AT ALL. He just kept shaking his head at me like I'm doing something wrong making that stupid 'click-click' noise with his tongue.

[pmbm]

HazelGirl,
I wish I could ask T for a reduced rate, but my rate is dictated by my insurance company and my copay is pretty high.

I imagine your asking if I can ask my wife to be patient until disability comes through. I think she tries, but it's the unknown of whether or not it will ever happen is what makes my wife a little crazy.

We'll get through it. It's really hard and frustrating to have this discussion again and again.

Artemis, I really wish I received some kind of pay where I could do what you do. Whole I was receiving unemployment, I did just that. But now any money coming into the house is my wife's paycheck or a check that comes to both of us.

[Soccer mom]

My husband has been frustrated by my therapy because I got worse before getting better. My T wants him to come in so she/we can explain to him what I'm going through and how I'm changing. Would it help for you to have a joint session for your T to explain what you're going through?

[ScarletPimpernel]

My fiance and I don't have issues about the cost of therapy...yet.

He does, however, have issues about therapy and psychiatry. He doesn't understand why I go back and forth between loving my T and Pdoc and hating them. He doesn't understand why I seemed to be okay when I played computer games 18hrs a day and now that I'm in therapy I'm in a crisis every other week. He also doesn't agree with psychiatric medication. My T and Pdoc have both tried talking to him. He said it helped, but there are still days when he's anti T and Pdoc.

I think, like Soccer Mom suggested, maybe having your T take some time to explain things to your wife might help. Maybe there might be some ways that she can help you so she feels a part of this area of your life?

With my previous T, I received monthly bills sent to my home, which meant that my H was aware of how much it cost. He did not complain as such, but he did question whether therapy was actually necessary or helpful. Since that T wasn't a very good match for me, the therapy didn't help so I changed Ts, and now my H does not know I am in therapy since there are no bills. The fact that he doesn't keep tabs on my therapy any longer means that I am able to get much more out of it. H has no idea of why I need therapy in the first place.

[Favorite Jeans]

Maybe she fundamentally doesn't get what you're going through? I often don't tell my partner stuff about therapy, not because I don't want her to know it but because I don't want the ickiness of therapy in my house. It makes it hard for her to empathize and not be irritated with the post therapy funk I'm in every week. I sometimes try to talk about it but it often ends up being a kind of guarded, vague explanation which I think she finds unsatisfying, if not irritating.

However my partner does value therapy, is in therapy herself and kind of accepts the cost as a necessary expense.

She started therapy several years before I did (this round anyway) and I was the full-time wage earner while she was the stay-at-home mom. She sometimes felt bad about the expense but honestly it was such a huge relief for me that she was getting support elsewhere that I never resented the cost of her therapy. But she was much more open about her therapy process with me than I am about mine with her. I'm just more in my head than she she is--which she often experiences as a kind of irritating spaciness. So maybe that made it easier for me to accept.

Do you think that your wife benefits at all from your being in therapy? Are there issues you no longer work out on your relationship because of therapy? Fights you no longer have? Symptoms she no longer has to deal with? Is therapy helping you become a better spouse or parent in ways that she can notice?

Have you really sat down with her when the kids are not around and explained how and why therapy works for you? Have you validated her concerns and resentment about the cost? Can you help her understand that your seemingly sudden and arbitrary inability to cope is not your choice and that a history of abuse can catch up with you in ways that are unpredictable, overwhelming and terrifying? That therapy is lighting your way through all the wreckage?

Does anyone have suggestions of books or maybe movies that could help with this?

Good luck!