Therapist told my partner to break up with me

[ Sorry long post, TLDR : my partner and I went to a couples therapist to help us communicate about a sensitive topic and she ended up having lied about her experience in said topic, told my partner I was going nowhere in life and to break up with me after just 3 sessions ]

This happened about a year ago already but I recently thought of it again because I learned what a sovereign citizen was (this will make sense later lol)

For context, I was living with my partner while I was in between places. Tensions were high being in the close space, we were forced to address certain issues we would have otherwise took our time with such as my work (I work in the sex industry, which he knew before we started dating and has no moral problems with, but still struggled with jealousy/discomfort about it.)

The topic became so sensitive for both of us and we struggled to communicate through our respective triggers so I sought out help. I wanted to see a couples therapist who also had experience treating sex workers because I had heard so many awful cases of therapists treating their clients differently/badly upon learning they do sex work.

We found someone we both liked who was associated with the sex workers union so I felt safe and hopeful going to her. The first session was really difficult, but her questions helped us to hear each other better, she was trying to get a sense of if we really wanted to work on/through this and we decided we were game. She gave us good communication tips.

The second session I left feeling confused and a bit annoyed because I spent a good portion of the session explaining to her how the industry functions/what the standards are/what the laws are (it’s legal here, but complicated) — she said she was asking me because her only reference was a couple of friends she had that used to do hobby escorting. I was confused because her page had mentioned so much about treating sex workers, and being certified to do so through the union. And annoyed because nothing really got accomplished that session — my partner talked about his fears including how I do drugs at work (not true/taken out of context), and she asked me if that was normal in the industry which took up the rest of the time.

At the end of that session, she asked us if we would both come see her individually before seeing her together again. We agreed. I went first. We talked about some general things I struggle with including depression etc and she asked me to make a pro/con list of the relationship.

I expected her to ask him to do the same during their session. Apparently, she didn’t even ask him to make a pro/con list, she went straight for “you should break up”. She told him that I was some sort of [my country’s version of sovereign citizen] who was going nowhere in life and that he shouldn’t want to stick around for that.

We both stopped seeing her after that, he didn’t tell me what she’d said until weeks later, I just assumed we both wanted to wait until we could afford her again (she was quite expensive). When he told me what she’d said about me and what she advised him to do I cried, and felt so betrayed, stigmatized and hopeless. It felt like I had went to someone for help and they talked behind my back and also went ahead and stabbed it while they were back there.

To this day I can’t grasp how she’d come to that conclusion — I never gave her the impression I conduct my work illegally. The only thing I could think of that would make her think I’m not trying to follow the law was that I told her I couldn’t afford health insurance at the moment (it’s illegal to be uninsured here). Either way, I feel like that was a really inappropriate assessment for a therapist to make after only 3 sessions. I also thought couples therapists aren’t supposed to tell you whether to break up or stay together (unless of course there’s abuse or someone is endangered by the relationship).

I’m glad my partner decided to stay with me. And I just truly hope it was some weird crazy misunderstanding and all the sex workers that this woman treats in the future are okay and aren’t further ostracized by her “help” like I was. Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to share this story somewhere, it still bothers me sometimes.