The Luv Doc: Get in the Shower
If someone offers you a breath mint, you take the fucking breath mint
By The Luv Doc, Fri., Nov. 2, 2018
Dear Luv Doc,
Me and my girlfriend have been fighting more and more since we moved in together this summer. She wants me to go to couples therapy, but I don't want to spend money to get someone to tell me what my problems are. That's like asking your mechanic if anything is wrong with your car even though it's running fine. Of course he's going to find something wrong with it. That's how he makes his money. She goes to therapy regularly and I don't have a problem with that, but that's her deal and not mine. I think she just wants to get me in there so she can put the blame for our problems on me. I really want to stay with her, but I feel like this is too much to ask; what do you think?
– A Little Crazy but Not That Crazy
Here's what I think: Go to therapy, you cheap bastard. Anytime someone – particularly your partner – asks you to go to therapy, they probably have a good reason. Just because you feel like you have your shit together doesn't mean you actually do. In fact, a good mental health baseline for pretty much everyone is that we're all fucked up but we're too fucked up to know it.
Have you ever had someone politely – or for that matter impolitely – suggest that you smell, and you thought to yourself, "I don't smell!" Bruh. Do you know how awkward it is to tell someone they stink? That's a conversation no one wants to have, so if they bring it up you can be sure you don't just smell a little bad, you smell like an open sewer. You smell like a sick cat just had diarrhea in a grease dumpster behind a sushi restaurant – and even if you don't, you should probably go ahead and bathe anyway, just to be safe. If someone offers you a breath mint, you take the fucking breath mint.
Now, I would happily concede that you are the picture of mental health, but as you yourself said, you have been fighting more and more. That is not the picture of mental health. Yes, your girlfriend may be crazier than a shithouse rat and meaner than a caged honey badger, but as my very sweet grandmother used to say, "It takes two to tango." This was absolutely maddening to me because it was her standard boilerplate response for whenever I came crying to her with a bloody nose or black eye from fighting with one of my brothers.
(Actually, "fighting" is a bit generous. Usually I was getting my ass kicked – and for no good reason. My grandmother didn't give a shit about that. She just knew that fighting was stupid. She wasn't wrong. She was simply discouraging me from engaging in that stupidity even though clearly I lacked the intellect – or perhaps the foot speed – to avoid it.)
There is a solution to the conflict you're having with your girlfriend ... even though you have proven unable to find it. Your girlfriend seems to have at least acknowledged that you both might need help. Think of it this way: She is saying, "Damn, we smell like ass. Why don't we take a shower together?" Get in the shower with her. You might get a little wet, but it couldn't hurt. As for the money, I'd say it's well spent. As the saying goes, you can't put a price on happiness, so spend freely.