Me and my boyfriend have been in a relationship for 5 years. Whenever I try to talk to him about things that bother me, he’ll say think like “you always have a problem with something” or “you’re constantly nagging me.” I feel like I’m good at letting the little things go and when I do bring up an issue it’s usually something that has been on my mind for at least a few days. Whenever I do bring up an issue, he refuses to see my point of view.
Ive tried using language that’s not accusatory (“WE should work on…” instead of “you should work on”) but that doesn’t seem to work. It seems like he interrupters everything I say as a personal attack against him rather than I genuine concern I have.
Has anyone every dealt with? If so, how did you address the issue?
Tldr; boyfriend refuses to listen to me when I try to communicate with him, and I don’t know how work on it.
4 comments
Personally, if someone repeatedly made it clear they aren’t willing to be in a relationship with me, I would just break up. Resolving problems together as a team is such a fundamental part of what a relationship is, that I wouldn’t stay with someone who isn’t doing that. I haven’t dealt with this personally though. The closest I had to a relationship that bad was someone who agreed his behavior was a problem, said he would change, then didn’t change. I learned from it, and I like to think he did too. We were both pretty young and immature at the time. He’s an ex now though, of course.
it sounds like he is using this as a way to avoid having to put any work into the relationship. just blame you and move on. this is concerning.
he is insecure and his knee jerk reaction is to turn it around and try to make you the bad person.
People who have successful relationships work together to solve a problem not against each other. His knee jerk response is ‘no you are the one with the problem’. He has the ‘you are the enemy mentality. You might want to say something like ‘ How can we work together to solve x?’
Unfortunately, if he is so defensive that he feels attacked all the time, either you are attacking him, or he feels so insecure that he believes he is being attacked. You can’t solve the later – that is a him problem.
If after five years you haven’t figured out how to contort a scentence in just the right way to get him to be receptive to your feelings and opinions…he isn’t going to change.
It doesn’t matter what communication tactic you try, the amount of time you give him to “figure it out” (as if caring about someone’s input should be relegated to a minimum amount of trips around the sun) or the lengths you go to just be heard; he had very clearly expressed he is not willing to listen and views your input and commentary as something to tune out.
When you start to check out of the relationship and stop trying to talk these problems out he will be glad you aren’t “nagging” him. Then after a while he will pick up on something being off. Hopefully that is around the point that you have decided to move up (because really, what other direction is there but up from him?) And move on and will not fall for any bs trap attempt if he swears he will change– he won’t.
He has had 5 years to show you that he values you. Its time to show him that you value yourself.