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’m on the other side of this sort of situation and I think this is a good way to approach it at first.
I have a hard time opening up to people and I recognize that. But recognizing it and acting on it are two different things. So to the OP give them that push and let them know that you want more from them. They may already know that they aren’t giving you enough. Right now I have to deal with the worst feeling of having someone I really cared about and had feelings for distance themselves from me because I didn’t really give it my all. And I was hoping she’d let me know, but she didn’t. And I don’t blame her for that if course. It’s just more difficult for some of us than others to fully express ourselves.
I can imagine it is hard to know what you need to do and for whatever reason feel that it’s out of reach. My partner has expressed the same feeling to me and, quite frankly, taken moments of great pain for me and made them about her feelings of inadequacy for not knowing how to support me. There are a lot of traps to walk into here.
I will keep communicating, I will keep trying for as long as it makes sense to. I just am running out of ways to say “please help me or at least don’t make this worse”.
Ah I see. If it’s a pattern then, yeah, I can see how each time you’d feel worse. Like it’s out there, but I think it’s fair that you’d want to see some sort of growth too.