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.
It might be that she simply isn’t as emotionally available. There is variance among people with that and depending on her life history, her parents parenting style, probably random shit like genetics or the mix of hormones in the womb etc, some people simply are more emotionally available than others.
And maybe consider your own upbringing. Maybe you are too giving and should be more self-centered? Or maybe you’re the type who likes being old dependable and you put others before yourself, which is exceptional and good, but you expect others to reciprocate to your high standards?
I don’t know you at all so I have no idea or intuition if any of these apply so I’m just throwing out possibilities that might apply to you or likely don’t.
My real point is maybe get therapy, not because you’re broken because you don’t seem broken, but to help you understand yourself and your needs and to have a better idea of how to navigate this imbalance and what it means for compatibility or how you can approach resolving it.
Ha, the therapy’s working then! I am indeed in therapy for other reasons but it has helped all around. I’ve tried to get my partner to engage in therapy on her own or as a couple and she is extremely agitated at the suggestion. I would really like to get her involved because I think if we were both disciplined about it there could be some movement but on my own I feel stuck, at least with respect to the relationship.
Re: your guesses, I definitely have a bad habit of imagining that other people care about me as much as I care about them. Our emotional states are moving targets so holding onto immutable concepts of friendship and love can be dangerous. For my part though I don’t want see my close relationships as disposable. But it’s good to remember that we have to defend ourselves too.