I have always been the agony aunt for people’s
relationships. Friends and colleagues always seem to come to me and say that
their partner is causing them heartache, or something upsets them. I am often
able to understand why their partner is doing or saying the hurtful thing, and help
them to start a conversation with their partner explaining, “When you do [insert
thing here] it hurts me, please can you try to [insert thing here],” and it
usually always works, or at the very least, leads to a further conversation of
fixing things. A lady that I went to university with was going to break up with
her partner over something very tiny. I helped her to understand why he was
saying what he was, and now they are married, own their own house and have two
children.
Whenever I say to someone I am dating, “When you ignore me, withdrawn affection,
or leave me with uncertainty, it hurts me. It makes me feel anxious and scared
about our future together. All I need is a small piece of communication, to
help me feel like I am a part of your life, like a small text at the end of the
day, where you acknowledge my messages and respond, for example, “Sorry to hear
you’ve had a tough day. I have been stuck in meetings all day, so I know the feeling.
Looking forward to the weekend already. Goodnight x” but whenever I say that, I
am told I am controlling, a horrible person, I am trying to change them, or I
am in the wrong. I am not asking for hours of their time. I am not asking to
see them every day or even every week. I am not taking their time away from
their friends, who they see daily, or their family. I am not asking for gifts
or to have money be spent on me. I am just asking for a very low level, basic relationship
need. When you show affection one day, but withdraw it completely the next,
that makes any normal person anxious, but it causes an anxious person to feel
even more anxious. They always tell me to, “get help,” but every time I do, the
doctor always says that I need to be with someone who treats me with respect and
does not do this. So why am I the only one who, when I tell the person that I
am dating, that they are doing something that is upsetting me, that I am in the
wrong for trying to tell them? I am not an angry or aggressive person. I find
it really hard to speak up and say when things hurt me, I do it as kindly and
gently as possible, but I am still being told I am wrong.
I even tried mirroring them. They put in absolute minimum effort. Just a few
words here and there by text message. I go from putting in 150% effort, to matching
their 10% effort (not to be spiteful, but because I am hurting so much from
putting in 150% effort every single day that I am struggling to cope and cannot
stop crying) and they say there is no point in texting or communicating at all,
because we just say the same thing. Unless I am the one putting in 150% effort
every day, we don’t have any communication.
Why am I always stuck with men who treat me like I am worthless? I know that if
they truly loved me and I mattered to them that they would try. They always do
with someone else, never with me. Why is everyone else allowed to be in a
relationship where their partner listens to them, when they tell their partner
that they are doing something that hurts them, and between them they can work
together to fix it. When I say that my partner is doing something that hurts
me, I am told to see a therapist to get over needing basic communication, and to
not feel anxious when my partner can talk to everyone else in the world but me,
when they can share all parts of their life with everyone else, including
complete strangers online, but they cannot communicate with their partner, or
share their important life decisions with me. They treat me like I am worthless
and meaningless to them. That I am just supposed to sit there, twiddling my
thumbs, waiting for them, while they live their life doing whatever they want.
They don’t want to show up or make any effort. They think they can just show up
some day, speak to me, see me and then go back to not bothering for days or
weeks and everything will just be okay, like I am some ragdoll that doesn’t
need to be treated fairly or with respect.
It really is the Josette rules. It is one rule for everybody else and one rule
for Josette.
