So I’ve been in a relationship for a while where it feels like I am much better at navigating my partner’s feelings and supporting them in hard times than they are for me. I’ll give a recent example of what I mean, and here I should put a content warning for a deceased pet.
My partner’s last childhood dog recently passed away, she was getting pretty old and was in failing health for a bit. When she died it wasn’t a terrible shock but it was very sad. My partner got some remembrances from the cremation and upon receiving them was very upset. They didn’t want to just hide the remembrances away somewhere because it felt disrespectful but also couldn’t deal with it at that time. So I stepped in, said, OK, I’ll take them, they’re going to be kept out in the open, not hidden, but I will hold them for you until you’re ready to reach a more permanent solution. Pretty good response if you ask me.
Now flip the script, say I’m the one in need. My partner doesn’t have anything other than cliches or proposed solutions to my problems that clearly aren’t well thought out and are effectively useless. I feel very unsupported emotionally a lot of the time.
But it isn’t just this relationship. I feel this throughout my life. I’ve wondered at times if this is a performed gender roles sort of thing. I’m a man and nobody has said to me directly “you’re a man just don’t have problems lmao” but it does at times feel like we are dancing around that implication. I don’t know. Just curious if other people have experienced this because I’m sick of needing to be the mature party in my relationships. If I cut off everyone that made me feel this way I’d be alone.
I have experienced a relationship like this and it’s definitely a problem to be fixed. If you spend all your time comforting your partner and “solving” and it’s not reciprocal, this can wear away your respect for them. You may need to make a little more of a lift: when you need support, do the work of figuring out what you want and then tell her. And then hopefully she’ll learn to do that without explicit help.
Also a little bit of stereotyping:
Are you sure this isn’t solution-oriented vs venting-oriented? Some people are very action oriented, some people have more of a passive orientation and want to sort of get it out and hear that they have options and get reassured that way. Action-oriented people feel let down when the other person just reassures them; venting-oriented people feel ignored when they’re trying to blow off steam and the other person keeps trying to make plans. These are gender roles you could be unwittingly playing.
Good suggestions, thank you.
Yeah this is a good question and one where I’ve put some focus myself. For my part I’d say I’m practical and try to gauge at a particular moment if I should offer advice or just shut up and listen. If unsure, I’ll ask. For my partner, she usually jumps to advice, which I find off putting. In those situations I’ll suggest we move on and kind of retreat to deal with my issues on my own. That might be toxic in its own way and denying her the chance to try something different, but we’ve been through this kind of thing enough times that I can only see disappointment on my end if I ask her for a different kind of support and she shuts down instead.
Hm. So she’s offering advice (or to take action herself?), but her advice is no good? What do you actually want, material help from her or for her to listen and empathize for a while and sort of support you while you sort things out? Have you communicated that to her? Retreating might be a little toxic, but if neither of you does anything concretely different you’ll just deepen the same groove of a hurtful dynamic and make it harder to change.
Also, Internet psychoanalysis is bunk but one thing that could be happening is you’re so used to managing stuff yourself that you’re hesitant to let another person have any steering input. Make sure she really is giving bad advice, because if she’s trying her best to be helpful and you’re reflexively pushing her away that’s gonna feel really bad on her end.