[manwe150]

> and charging you a bunch of money as essentially a paid friend

A friend of mine is a therapist, and through discussions with him about his job, I'm not sure anymore this is quite accurate. A friend may have other agendas, like maintaining their own image and status, or may unintentionally gossip, or just may not be appropriate to cover some subjects with. I now view a therapist as someone I'd pay to actually be outside of my circle of friends, as someone trusted in a completely different way to discuss questions and help process. Or perhaps, metaphorically, like having CI to test and a rubber duck to debug, before you deploy something to production.

I also appreciated reading your story, your determination to work together, and the advice from this HN crowd. I hope and pray it goes better for all involved.