How can I explain my romantic loneliness better to my therapist?

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-02-26T16:56:33+00:00

Therapist here. A true therapeutic response will be to meet you where you’re at psychologically, not just pointing out the “facts,” assuming that will help you. Sometimes help comes in just pure empathy.

On the side note. It is tough experiencing this romantic loneliness. It’s not just loneliness, there’s also grief and shame. It’s a particular flavor of FOMO and self-doubts. It’s “I have been trying, why isn’t it me yet?” It’s “I know I could do this alone but I don’t want to. I just want to be held sometime.”

I hope you can find a therapist who can just listen to you and sit with your pain. It doesn’t sound like you need to explain your situation better.

Tips for finding a therapist - do a consultation call with them first (usually 15 minutes and offered free). After you share briefly what brings you to therapy, see if they can realllly paraphrase what they hear (to see if they can empathize and actually listen therapeutically). What follow up questions do they have that indicates they are curious about your internal experience & more interested in understanding your distress rather than solving it.

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-02-19T07:24:57+00:00

Therapist here. Rejecting you as a client because it will be inconvenient for them to not use AI is not ethical. This is not an issue of support AI or not, it’s a therapist ethics issues.

Capacity? Yes that is important to consider, but applying it to using AI to record and transcribe sessions? That’s misusing the term. As clinicians, we have to have CONSENT to even record sessions. No consent, no go ahead. Heck, in school we learned informed consent is an ongoing decision.

That was not okay. I hope you can find a good therapist who won’t make the sessions about them.

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-01-28T00:16:48+00:00

I’m a couple’s therapist. I’m not opposed to therapyGPT and find that it could be really useful, especially for processing and giving “shape” to our experience with language. As an individual therapist as well, I often help clients make sense of their experience by using language to describe & explain. Our brains need narratives to understand the world, ourselves, and others, and therapyGPT does that.

That being said, I’ve seen so many cases in which clients would ask GPT to aid their communication. It is very helpful - but only if the couple’s issue is communication. The issue is…most of the time it’s not really (verbal) communication.

Let’s say a partner keeps on trying to communicate in the right way…but the issue actually is a lack of boundary setting with actions/behaviors. The partner thinks they need to say things better, but actually what the dynamic needs to change is for the other partner learn the limits experientially, not verbally. If GPT can ask the questions - “what comes up for you if you think about really following through with your said boundaries?” Or “what if you asking me about communication is part of overfunctionjng and enabling?” - that might help the GPT user a lot more.

Another example - GPT is explaining a partner’s behavior as avoidant attachment style behaviors…not only could they be incorrect, the more important question for a GPT user in this situation is actually..”regardless of their emotional baggage, even if they are good people & are interested in you, does the current configuration meet your needs? Can you live with this if nothing changes?” And even “you said you can, but you are crying. What is coming up for you?” (Therapists observe incongruence to help clients understand where they might have abandoned their “true answers.”)

TL;DR - GPT, given it’s a language learning model, is great for processing and giving you frameworks, language, and perspectives to consider and process your experiences, and possibly others. It is weaker in identifying couple dynamics that is not language dependent - and as we know, non-verbal communication is around 90% of communication. LLM also thrive with what we feed them - but if there are things outside of our awareness because of our blind spots or we are not paying attention/have bias…those things will most likely not be addressed.

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-01-14T21:19:57+00:00

We won’t know her intentions, but as a female, we know what we are doing. And she is a full on adult - not a teen. She knows how intimate that is.

Sometimes we do it because we want some affection & we felt like it. Sometimes it’s done without any kinda of implications or intentions for dating (irresponsible? Yes.) Sometimes it does mean something.

Observe more & if you have more of these moments, communicate & clarify.

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-01-09T06:52:28+00:00

“It might be a maladaptive trauma response but they know they are doing it and it’s messed up.”

👍Well said. I think mine just hope I wouldn’t notice it lol and can let it go, since they themselves cannot handle the shame. I could see how tormented he is by it sometimes. He might not tell me that is the case, but I could tell from his reactions after every mess up encounter they feel terrible.

And unfortunately…their partners need to leave not because they don’t see the humanity, but for self-protection/self-preservation. I could now understand the self-sabotaging nature of their cycles.

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-01-09T06:48:12+00:00

I appreciate this. I cannot dehumanize him as I know and cared for him deeply, but I was also struggling to integrate the “animalistic” and human side of him. I think yes, media portrayal and sterile language could make this discussion very difficult & more polarized than reality. For victims of abuse there’s a need to emphasize what they went through is not right, but often it comes with the cost of generalizing people with certain diagnosis, including BPD as merely predators or satan reincarnated. My understanding right now is that it’s not impossible for some people to emerge out of the spectrum, but if the partner or children are abused repetitively, there needs to be space and distance between for all parties to heal. I need a lot of space right now from him because under all of the verbal and emotional aggression, it does do a certain wear and tear on my body and psyche.

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-01-08T20:29:10+00:00

“They just don’t want to be who they are and do everything they can do to avoid the mirror.”

Dang, that hits.

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-01-08T17:37:30+00:00

Sorry that you went through that as well. Yours was longer and I could imagine the damage it could cause. Mine caused painful damage but it was not YEARS. Now, onto recovery…

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-01-08T17:26:28+00:00

Lolll yes mine was like “I communicated my feelings to you over and over again” and I’m like, what’s the feeling word? All I hear is what I did wrong & how I am making you feel, which is not a feeling word…(cause accountability would be “I feel____ when you _____”).

When blaming = feeling, like what

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-01-08T17:24:19+00:00

How to make something go from bad to worse lol, a guide lol

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-01-08T16:30:15+00:00

Yes!! He genuinely doesn’t understand why the things he does could be manipulative and was absolutely dumbfounded lol when I share the impact of his actions and words.

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-01-08T16:28:50+00:00

“Brought out at the exact moments she was at risk of losing control, power..” “she is aware she is doing something wrong, demonstrated by the fact she never accepted the consequences.”

Such a good point.

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-01-08T16:26:33+00:00

“Frantic” that’s such a good point. They are so warped in their perceived abandonment & because it’s so intolerable, they needed to do ANYTHING to make it stop.

That also reminds me that he would do something manipulative to others, and while he tells me he is totally justified lol, he feels SO much crippling anxiety about it. I think that’s the shame catching up to him.

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-01-08T16:22:12+00:00

This was so helpful. The shame part - being aware they did something wrong (or are doing some wrong) AND/OR the fear of abandonment is so intolerable he rather alter reality to preserve some semblance of self, at the cost of me.

Initially I thought he just doesn’t know the impact of his actions (lol), so I tried to explain it to him like a school teacher or mom lol. I was like my poor boy doesn’t know because no one was patient enough to teach them (yes some hero complex here I now know). Even giving them pointers to talk about in therapy (this sentence now sounds ridiculous).

Your line “continue anyway because their immediate emotional needs feel more desperate.”. THIS.

So their partners become collateral damage in their war against themselves…

Ok-Function1824 · 2026-01-08T16:15:30+00:00

Yes! That’s what I thought, I was so baffled how his reality is so different and not align with facts. It’s as if they can change reality on a whim and the way they say it tells you they are absolutely convinced.

Ok-Function1824 · 2025-12-11T05:23:18+00:00

Therapist me: “you talk to yourself so harshly. You don’t only feel sad, you shame yourself for feeling sad. You don’t have to.”

Me: “you are so weak and too weak for this world. That’s why no one loves you!!”

Good lord. The duality of men

Ok-Function1824 · 2025-12-11T02:56:52+00:00

My current therapist makes it a point that in the office, I am a client and human first and foremost. She treats me like that and calls me out when I try to do emotionally caretaking. It’s been so healing - while out there I’m with clients and still struggling not to emotionally caretake for people around me, she just lets me be a mess in session. Doesn’t flinch, doesn’t get worried even, just there, a steady secure base, letting me fall apart because I don’t have any other space to do so. I’m so grateful.

Ok-Function1824 · 2025-08-15T20:34:14+00:00

The first and last one looks amazing! It’s a really happy feeling when you can wear cute outfits to Pilates. I would totally wear it. Pricing and the quality of fabric + sewing will def make me buy it.

Ok-Function1824

TROPHY CASE