I don't have anyone to ask about this, so I'm bringing it to the masses. My (21 nb) boyfriend (21 m) is a history undergrad who has had a rough college career. After failing two of the four classes he took freshman year, first semester, he got put on academic probation and the supervisor put him back on track (he earned a high enough gpa to land on the dean's/chancellors list). Now that we're in senior year, he's joining a fast-track, one year graduate program (if you get two c's you get kicked out). He is currently in one of these graduate classes, and the professor has a completely unfair grading policy. To the point where the reading notes that are due every class are on 80 pages, no rubric on what the notes are supposed to be, and if you fail more than three, you fail the class. My boyfriend came home from his internship today in tears, terrified he is going to fail. How do I stop him from tearing himself up over this? Especially when I know he is capable, he's just not believing in himself.
Every thing I try to do to help is not helping. I thought it was just me, when I try to point out solutions he falls back to "that's not my point, it's just so stupid". And maybe I can find other ways to coax optimism out of him, but he is letting this one class get to him. He thinks his chances of success are ruined, and the semester isn't even over. I feel like I'm a parent trying to get an angry kindergartener to learn the abcs. I can't even bring up therapy without sending him into a spiral (his last therapist quit right before his "therapy graduation" and that damaged any relationship to mental health authorities. But I feel like I'm a therapist; and I'm failing him)