My partner is often incredibly unfair, unreasonable, difficult, and bad tempered. I'm just left gasping at how rude and unreasonable he can be.
My problem is, HOW do you stop someone treating you badly? I often hear people say they wouldn't ALLOW someone to treat them badly.There's quotes such as: "People will treat you as badly as you allow them to... you teach people how to treat you". But I don't understand how to NOT allow him to treat me badly. HOW do I "not stand for it"? How do I establish "boundaries" and insist on him respecting me? What do I DO if he oversteps my boundaries of acceptable behaviour? I had this problem with my first husband too, and ended up leaving him eventually.
If my current partner is rude to me, I'll say "Don't speak to me that way," but then what? He doesn't apologise, so what can I do? I could always stay in a huff until I receive an apology, but then he would just stay silent and get in a huff himself (as I said, he's unfair and unreasonable!) and we could end up in an escalating cold war that goes on indefinitely. Then it would start to impact on everything, eg if we had plans to go to a party one of us wouldn't go, if we had tickets to a show, we'd miss it, if we had holiday plans or friends coming to stay for the weekend it would cause problems. It's cutting off my nose to spite my face.
For instance his 50th birthday is coming up in 6 weeks and I know when the day comes, he loves entertaining and will really enjoy a party, and will be disappointed and possibly even blame me if he doesn't have one. His friends and family are encouraging me to organise it, however we've only been together for 3 years, so I don't think it's quite my place to take over the planning completely and he needs to be involved, especially as he's also paying for it. Yet he is incredibly grumpy about discussing the party! As soon as I raise the topic, he acts as if I'm nagging him to mow the lawn or unblock a toilet! It's not as if I'm insisting he have a party and he really doesn't want one. I've always said that if he doesn't want a party, that's his decision and that's fine.
Anyway, he has established that he WILL have a party and has participated in some vague discussion about it, but whenever I try to finalise a decision he gets stroppy! I've spent hours putting together the invite, but I need him to confirm that he's happy with it and all the details on it, then he needs to be involved in sending out the invites as many of the guests are his friends (I've only known them 3 years though him) so he has their email addresses, contact details etc. I can't launch the invite without his involvement.
When I tried to get him to check some changed details on the invite before he went to work, he told me to stop haranging him and got angry and grumpy and left in a rage and will probably stay angry for days! Yet this invite should have been sent out 2 weeks ago! I only care about him and his party and that it's a success and he's happy with it! I swear I'm not haranging him - it's just that organising a party in your own home for 100 people requires planning and discussion. Some people plan their 50ths for years! It's really rude and unreasonable for him to even say that.
It's so tempting for me to just drop the whole darn thing and let it flounder, that is what he richly deserves and THAT would soon teach him not to overstep my boundaries, but I would feel mean spirited doing that. It would be an awful memory, that his 50th was a shambles, even though it would be his own fault. What do I do??
My problem is, HOW do you stop someone treating you badly? I often hear people say they wouldn't ALLOW someone to treat them badly.There's quotes such as: "People will treat you as badly as you allow them to... you teach people how to treat you". But I don't understand how to NOT allow him to treat me badly. HOW do I "not stand for it"? How do I establish "boundaries" and insist on him respecting me? What do I DO if he oversteps my boundaries of acceptable behaviour? I had this problem with my first husband too, and ended up leaving him eventually.
If my current partner is rude to me, I'll say "Don't speak to me that way," but then what? He doesn't apologise, so what can I do? I could always stay in a huff until I receive an apology, but then he would just stay silent and get in a huff himself (as I said, he's unfair and unreasonable!) and we could end up in an escalating cold war that goes on indefinitely. Then it would start to impact on everything, eg if we had plans to go to a party one of us wouldn't go, if we had tickets to a show, we'd miss it, if we had holiday plans or friends coming to stay for the weekend it would cause problems. It's cutting off my nose to spite my face.
For instance his 50th birthday is coming up in 6 weeks and I know when the day comes, he loves entertaining and will really enjoy a party, and will be disappointed and possibly even blame me if he doesn't have one. His friends and family are encouraging me to organise it, however we've only been together for 3 years, so I don't think it's quite my place to take over the planning completely and he needs to be involved, especially as he's also paying for it. Yet he is incredibly grumpy about discussing the party! As soon as I raise the topic, he acts as if I'm nagging him to mow the lawn or unblock a toilet! It's not as if I'm insisting he have a party and he really doesn't want one. I've always said that if he doesn't want a party, that's his decision and that's fine.
Anyway, he has established that he WILL have a party and has participated in some vague discussion about it, but whenever I try to finalise a decision he gets stroppy! I've spent hours putting together the invite, but I need him to confirm that he's happy with it and all the details on it, then he needs to be involved in sending out the invites as many of the guests are his friends (I've only known them 3 years though him) so he has their email addresses, contact details etc. I can't launch the invite without his involvement.
When I tried to get him to check some changed details on the invite before he went to work, he told me to stop haranging him and got angry and grumpy and left in a rage and will probably stay angry for days! Yet this invite should have been sent out 2 weeks ago! I only care about him and his party and that it's a success and he's happy with it! I swear I'm not haranging him - it's just that organising a party in your own home for 100 people requires planning and discussion. Some people plan their 50ths for years! It's really rude and unreasonable for him to even say that.
It's so tempting for me to just drop the whole darn thing and let it flounder, that is what he richly deserves and THAT would soon teach him not to overstep my boundaries, but I would feel mean spirited doing that. It would be an awful memory, that his 50th was a shambles, even though it would be his own fault. What do I do??
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