When your significant other is against you and not for you when it really matters the most. When their sarcastic humor is no longer funny and inappropriate. When the jokes go just a little bit too far and hurt just a little bit too much on the inside.
We’ve all had moments in our lives where we refuse good advice or information from someone based solely on the fact we don’t respect or like that person only to find out later down the road that they were correct after all.
This can be a common occurrence between parents and their children. Children seem to go to extreme measures, especially teenagers, in not wanting their parents to be right about anything. When they hear good advice or the parents offer any advice the children refuse to accept it no matter how good or accurate it may be.
We’ve all probably done something stupid like this growing up and had to make the mistake or do something wrong on our own to learn the hard way.
This stupidity factor may also occur in relationships.
Your significant other may be so stubborn or simply refuse to give you credit for anything that they will not under any circumstances take your advice or knowledge, and in some cases, refuse to even listen to or understand it in the first place.
Sometimes later they’ll come back to you with information that they just heard about from a friend that you told them about over a month ago. Funny how they’ll listen to everyone but you, yet you’re supposed to be their most intimate person in their lives.
They do things that sometimes may have you questioning if they know you or care about you at all. Sometimes they can make you seem so ignored as your feats, accomplishments, hobbies, and other things you excel at get brushed aside like nothing.
Want some examples?
Let’s pretend you’ve been a medical doctor for 20 years and you’re good at it. One day you come home and your wife is trying to tell you how you’ve been doing things wrong in your practice because she watched Dr Phil and he said so.
Maybe you’ve been working in marketing for 10 years and you’ve been very successful, maybe you’ve made millions of dollars, and written extensively on the topic.
One day your wife brings to you a book on marketing written by some guy she’s been talking to and telling you how awesome he is for writing such a book and how amazing of a person he is.
Maybe one of your primary hobbies is running, fitness, health, and exercise. You’re good at it. Maybe you win races, coach people, and keep up to date on all the science behind it.
Maybe you’ve encouraged your spouse or person to work out and given them all the reasons why they should and they’ve ignored you.
One day they’ve decided to go to the gym where they meet other people who work out, and finally they get excited about working out and the people they get to hang out with — as long as it’s not you.
Are you good at baseball? Video games? A musical instrument? Something else?
Imagine if the only time your significant other shows any interest in any of those things is if they learn from somebody else or do them with someone else and don’t involve you at all in the process. Not only that, but they’ll talk about how amazing all of these other people are right in front of you.
You get to sit there in shock wondering, “What about me?”
“I do all of those things, and I do them well, but that’s not enough for you is it?”
No matter what I know, no matter what I do, no matter how well I do it — it’s always going to be someone else that you get excited for.
You’ve never asked me how I do the things I do, and if you do ask, you ignore what I say or don’t take any action on it.
Why does it take a third party to motivate you to do something?
At the end of the day I’m shattered. You were supposed to build me up and amplify me instead these thoughts run through my mind.
“Everything I do is awesome to you but only when you find somebody else that does it half as good and isn’t me.”
“I want you to notice the things I do when I do them, not when someone else does.”
There will come a day that I will remain silent. I will stop offering you help and stop doing the things I do for you. There will come a day when I start to do them for someone else that gives me the respect, appreciation, and support I deserve.
The same respect, appreciation, and support you give to others freely that did nothing to earn it while giving nothing to those that did.
I told my significant other yesterday that a woman will go silent and disappear if she is chronically dismissed and unappreciated. Then saw this article today. I feel validated.