The Bull McCabe, the legendary character from the film The Field, has never quite left my memory. His whole sense of himself is bound up in land, silence and self-sufficiency. He has no language for what is happening inside him until it is far too late.
He is an extreme case, but the pattern he represents is a familiar one. Endurance without words. Feelings permitted, but rarely named out loud, and almost never to another person. After the Bull and his wife lose their son, they do not speak to each other for eighteen years. Grief that might have been shared becomes a wall between them. Had she suggested he talk to someone, I imagine the answer would have been short. Yet that suggestion is exactly what brings many people to my door today.
The Bull’s way is no longer what is expected of us. Over a generation, culture has moved towards openness, connection and emotional honesty as ordinary parts of adult life. Many of us are still catching up, carrying older habits of coping alone into relationships that now ask for something more. The question many people are left with is a simple one: how can I offer the emotional connection my partner wants, when I never really had it myself?
When your partner suggests therapy
Many of the people I see are wrestling with exactly this question. There can be a note of embarrassment when they tell me a partner suggested coming, as if being nudged into therapy means they have failed in some way, that they should have sorted it out by themselves, or that the relationship must already be in trouble.
In my experience, none of these is usually true. A partner’s suggestion is one of the most common routes into therapy. But it is only a route in. For therapy to work, you need to want to be there for yourself, not just for them.
Why a partner’s concern is worth listening to
The people closest to us see our blind spots. A partner notices when we go quiet at the end of the day, when a short temper has become the norm, when a few drinks have become a few more, or when every hard conversation gets turned into a joke.
By the time they say, “I think you should talk to someone”, they have usually been watching for a while. It can land as criticism. More often it is concern, and it comes from a wish for deeper connection.
It can help to be curious about the suggestion rather than treating it as an attack. It does not mean they are right about everything, but it may mean something is worth looking at.
A note of caution
Being asked to come is not the same as wanting to be there. A therapist cannot do the work for you, and neither can your partner. If someone attends only to keep the peace, with no real wish to be in the room, very little tends to change. That is not a failure on anyone’s part. It may simply mean the timing is not right.
That said, some people arrive hesitantly and, over the first few sessions, find something of their own to work on. When that happens, the therapy can begin.
If you are not sure why you are here
You do not need a clear goal to start. “I’m here because my partner asked me to come” is an honest first sentence, and a perfectly good place to begin.
The early sessions are partly about finding out what you might want from this for yourself. Not what you have been asked to fix, but what has been weighing on you, what you have stopped saying, and what you would change if you could. Therapy is not there to prove your partner right or wrong. It is there to help you understand what is going on for you.
Your space, not theirs
Once you are in the room, the work belongs to you. What you talk about stays between us, within the usual limits of confidentiality, and I will not be reporting back to anyone. Some people find that the first real relief: a place where they do not have to manage anyone else’s reaction.
Individual therapy is also different from couples counselling. If it becomes clear that much of what is going on sits between the two of you, couples work can run alongside it. But individual therapy starts with you, your history and your way of coping.
If you are the partner
If you are reading this because you want someone you love to get support, how you raise it matters. Pick a calm moment rather than the middle of an argument. Speak about what you have noticed and how it affects you, rather than what is wrong with them. And let it be an invitation, not an ultimatum.
It is also worth accepting that you cannot do this part for them. You can open the door. Walking through it, and staying, has to be their choice.
If this sounds familiar
If someone close to you has suggested therapy, it does not mean something is broken. It usually means someone is paying attention. It may also be an invitation to put down a way of coping that served you once but no longer fits the life you are living.
You do not need to wait for a crisis. A first session is simply a chance to see what talking might offer.
John Igoe is a counsellor and psychotherapist who works with adults experiencing emotional, relational and life difficulties. His work is informed by an integrative approach, with particular interest in how early experiences, family relationships and deeper emotional patterns can shape the way we understand ourselves and relate to others.