Just be a Traditional Woman - $h*t Therapists Say

What is the crappiest thing a therapist has ever said to you? Today we dive into the bad advice of "Just be a traditional woman". Watch this video to learn what we would say instead.

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00:00 Be a traditional woman
01:00 “Take care of the mans needs”
05:00 Clip
07:00 “Be traditional”
11:00 Know your needs

#mendedlight #jonathandecker

[personified]

“Before I speak on this as a therapist, I wanna hear what you have to say as a woman” is just really thoughtful

[juliaschurmann]

I swear by my pretty floral bonnet, opinionated therapists are incredibly dangerous. I had one as a teenager. My relationship with my mother was very toxic at the time and she managed to manipulate my therapist into supporting her positions on every disagreement we had and would spend 40ins explaining why she was right, I was wrong and how I was bad for hurting my mother. I say 40 minutes because she spent the first and last 10 minutes of the session with my mother. The next therapist I saw 5 years later because the first one got pregnant so I had a chance to find someone new was confused by somethings I took responsibility for. He asked if he could have 1 joint session with us both to try to understand the dynamic. We had a 40 minute session, he asked her to step out, turned to me and said "holy crap, ok, I get it now. Boundaries for the next year we are focusing on Boundaries! You did not exaggerate, you are not crazy, it wasn't your fault but you wont see that until we learn to maintain some healthy Boundaries. So yeah, Boundaries" He was right and by god did he save my life, literally. He saved my life with boundaries. Incidently, my mother hated him for it.

[Calla]

Wow! I didn’t think I’d see my response on here ! (I’m the woman from the first example) This actually helped heal a bit of the damage I’m still dealing with from her.
In defense of my husband he was horrified when he saw me tying myself in knots trying to follow her “advice”. He said he was a grown ass man with two working legs and he can get his own water if he was thirsty lol. Also, he wanted a partner not a slave and actually encouraged me to leave that therapist and find a new one. I’m really glad I did before we had our daughter because I shudder to think what other crazy things she would have said.

[strngenchantedgirl]

Alicia - I love seeing another woman who embraces the fact that she has a lot of “masculine” traits. I occasionally come in contact with people who want to shame me for being assertive and ambitious and having leadership qualities. I love these parts of me and I fully feel feminine and womanly. I love that you embrace this about yourself too.

[ivyateve]

Listening to this, I had to think about my grandparents. It was the fifties and a busy household with 6 kids. My grandfather, a talented tailor but otherwise all thumbs, stood ironing the clothes while my grandmother was hammering in a nail to hang a picture. A visitor was shocked and asked my grandmother why and my ever pragmatic grandmother replied: he can do the ironing better than I can and I don't have the time to tend to him when he undoubtedly hits his fingers. They were fairly traditional but recognized their talents (or lack thereof) and worked as a team. It influenced my view on "genderroles".

[laurenlittlewood]

I once had a therapist tell me, “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight, ” after telling her I was struggling with an ED relapse. And that was it. No follow-up. No, but. Just wanting to lose weight is fine. I was silent for what felt like a full minute, waiting for the wisdom. I finally responded, “Yeah, but standing over a toilet trying to talk myself out of purging is not that.” I stopped seeing her after that.

[moreanimals]

If I were the woman in the first example this would be my response; "I'm sorry, did you think I was a psychic when we got married? I'm not and I can prove it because if I had foreseen this conversation, we wouldn't be married. If you want something from me, you verbalize it with the word please. If you have a problem with that, we can't stay married."

[masumi]

The problem with "traditional marriage from 1950s" is that it is heavily glamorised by people who didn't live in those times.

[lifelikelisa]

I don’t have a problem with people choosing a traditional relationship…at long as both partner’s have equal rights and respect for one another.

I do, however, have a problem with people saying, “I chose this role because my gender or my religion dictates it.” I’m all for religion until it’s used to oppress people.

[jmvanzalinge]

I had a therapist tell me that I needed to "fake it till you make it" before even fully coming to understand me and my situation. Turns out a lot of my anxiety and depression was based on masking undiagnosed autism. I had been faking it, I had been faking it for so long that I did the opposite of making it, I burnt out and crashed. So when he told me that before either of us knew about the autism I thought, "sure, because that's been working out so well for me."

[brianneporchak]

Hubby and I organically ended up in a somewhat "traditional" marriage. After our daughter was born, it made more sense emotionally and financially for me to stay home (severe anxiety over the idea of anyone watching her aside from us).

She's now 8, and we still have the same dynamic. I do all the domestic and financial chores, while he works his labour intensive job for 9 hours per day. When he gets home, he relaxes and spends time with kiddo until her bedtime.

But after that, it's all about us. He's asking about my day, helping me emotionally even when he's stressed or exhausted. He's finding out what I need from him tomorrow to help me. And on the weekends, he asks me what cleaning or organizing thing I just can't deal with, and he does it. It can be as little as throwing a load of laundry on for me all the way to deep cleaning the bathroom/kitchen or doing the yard work.

I take care of him when he's exhausted, and he returns that when he's able to. It's a "traditional" marriage at a glance, but there is mutual care and support in ways that fit with how we live.

[FishareFriendsNotFood]

I'm a woman and I once had a therapist say no boyfriend would be happy in a non monogamous relationship because 'men are just naturally possessive'. My response was 'ah yes, because we all know how much gay men love monogamy!' 🤣🤨☠ Yeah, that was my last session.

[aperta]

No prudent therapist will say "you should have" in a lecture-ous manner. The therapist is not living in the shoes of the client/patient.

[tigerfire]

Last time I saw a YouTuber get divorced things got very ugly. I'm glad things are still good between the two

[mallisaunders]

I love the idea of partnerships finding their own balance. My husband and I have a semi-traditional balance: he does the fix things, I do the people stuff. However... he cooks and sews better than I do. Also, my "ew gross" threshold is waaaay higher than his.

[Nina_Hallsjo]

The main reason for why I don’t go to therapists anymore. Halfway through excepting our third child my husband realised he was in love with his childhood friend and asked for a divorce, our daughter was born with a syndrome, and I almost caught eclampsia. Safe to say, I was not in a good place. Went to see a therapist and he said “but you’re happy?! You’re smiling at your baby, and you’re not crying when you talk about this. I don’t believe you need to be here, I think you’re faking it!” I just looked at him for two seconds, put my baby in the pram and walked out.

[HouseMDaddict]

"if something needs to be fixed I fix it. If someone needs to be heard, you hear them." I really liked how you said this.

[puppypoet]

I have been judged and criticized so many times because I grew up dreaming of being a somewhat traditional housewife. I changed the term to stay-at-home mother and people have started to shut up.

[jessicaharris]

"We often apply moral judgments to non-moral questions." This is an elegant way of saying what I say about purple vs. yellow. I love purple and I hate yellow. Is there anything morally wrong with yellow? Absolutely not! I have had many people in authority make a "purple vs. yellow" issue into a moral issue. In the circles I often frequent, my more assertive so-called "masculine" traits are looked negatively upon. I have been charged by people in moral authority to essentially change a fundamental part of myself. Someone who is a mentor to my husband has instructed me to be much more submissive and to quell my assertive tendencies in deference to my husband. To her, I should always submit to my husband's wishes, even if they're NOT moral issues but even "purple vs. yellow" issues e.g. what restaurant to eat at. My husband HAS NEVER been the type to push and demand I follow his lead. We haven't been married for even a decade yet, so we're still figuring things out but I thank God my husband does NOT demand submission from me. My husband calls me his "strong right arm" and defers to me as his partner. There's certain things that he has vastly more wisdom and experience with so I defer to his expertise. There are other things that, like Alicia, I excel at. When our kitchen sink was clogged, it was me who did the research and figured out how to fix the issue. I was the one to put on gloves and unscrew the P-trap and pipe under the sink to unclog the sink. My husband has taught himself how to invest and handles all of our retirement saving/investments. I handle only our simple basic emergency fund savings account cause that's all I understand. Investments are completely over my head! My husband handles washing most of the dishes because I hate it even more than he does. In exchange, I handle most of the gross jobs like the cat litter box and taking out the trash and recycling. I can handle gross things much better than he can since I'm a farm kid and a healthcare worker and I can use gloves. (I always say that I can handle a lot of gross things if I can wear gloves!)

[MrJBest]

We have options now. We can be whoever we want to be. Some women want to be traditional stay home wives/moms and keep house. While some men do the traditional husband things. If that works for BOTH of you, SO BE IT. Do it then, if you don’t want to be that, then don’t! Men can be great nurturing dads and do whatever the traditional wives can do as well. Everyone is different and what works for some people might not work for others. You are never going to please everyone and that sounds so cliche but it’s true. You need to be who you are and only YOU can define yourself as a person and no one else. That’s just my cheap two cents worth. Have a wonderful day to anyone who reads the comments in this post.