My boyfriend and I have been together for about a year and a half. We've had some issues, not with us as a couple, but with outside influences (his crazy ex /mother of his son and sometimes his own mom) that are causing major stress for both of us. I finally got to the point where I've said all I can say to him and letting him know how things are affecting me personally and I told him that a lot of my stress and crankiness has a lot to do with his ex and sometimes his mother. I love his mom personally, but its more that she's still sort of friends with his ex and talks to her causally and let's his ex know a lot about our relationship, which creates drama between my boyfriend and his ex and in turn between me and my boyfriend.
His mom says she doesn't mean to start anything that she loves me, but sometimes she mentions places we've gone and things we've done in conversation innocently, not realizing until after there's a blow up with my boyfriend and his ex that there was anything wrong with it. My boyfriend said that he's told him mom to stop but that just creates more issues with them.
I told my boyfriend I've decided to go talk to a therapist b/c I'm at the point where I don't know what else to do and I hate being stressed out about the same thing over and over, when it’s not something that's in my control to change. He said he thought maybe he should go too, with me and alone, anything to help us/him figured things out and learn to set some boundaries with his mom and ex. Especially since it’s been trying on our relationship and we know we want to eventually get married and have a family (we are 28 & 29).
For about a week he was gung ho about talking to a therapist and now he's back tracking saying that he thinks he can solve his problems on his own. But this has been going on since before we were together, it's just gotten worse in his personal life since he and I started dating b/c he has a crazy jealous ex. I really wish he'd give therapy a shot b/c I think it'd really help his personally and us to communicate even better and learn how to manage the stresses of these outside influences. How do I get him to see the bright side of therapy or convince him to at least try it before he decides "no" for good?
His mom says she doesn't mean to start anything that she loves me, but sometimes she mentions places we've gone and things we've done in conversation innocently, not realizing until after there's a blow up with my boyfriend and his ex that there was anything wrong with it. My boyfriend said that he's told him mom to stop but that just creates more issues with them.
I told my boyfriend I've decided to go talk to a therapist b/c I'm at the point where I don't know what else to do and I hate being stressed out about the same thing over and over, when it’s not something that's in my control to change. He said he thought maybe he should go too, with me and alone, anything to help us/him figured things out and learn to set some boundaries with his mom and ex. Especially since it’s been trying on our relationship and we know we want to eventually get married and have a family (we are 28 & 29).
For about a week he was gung ho about talking to a therapist and now he's back tracking saying that he thinks he can solve his problems on his own. But this has been going on since before we were together, it's just gotten worse in his personal life since he and I started dating b/c he has a crazy jealous ex. I really wish he'd give therapy a shot b/c I think it'd really help his personally and us to communicate even better and learn how to manage the stresses of these outside influences. How do I get him to see the bright side of therapy or convince him to at least try it before he decides "no" for good?