Hi Jessica,
I’m stuck. I’m a woman in my late 30s and am totally in love with my boyfriend, or at least I think I am. I am a really positive person and I thought he was too, but he’s been really negative lately and it’s not only dragging me down but making me loose respect for him. I want to be supportive to him but lately I’m only annoyed and find myself snapping. Help! — Irritable in Chicago
The best way to handle your BFs negativity is with a multi-layered approach, IIC. If you’re going to be in a serious relationship with someone, you’re gonna need to be able to tolerate their crappy moods and vulnerabilities, even when they’re a total boner-killer for you. When an otherwise well-balanced or positive person goes negative Nancy on you, it’s generally because something is wrong. So step one is to have compassion, my dear. It’s hard to have that when you don’t really know what’s motivating your BF, so step 1-B is to be interested in your sweetie enough to try to find out what’s going on underneath the bitching. If you only ask after him when you’re secretly annoyed, he’s unlikely to feel comfortable confiding in you — that is, if he even knows what’s bugging him at all. So step two is investigate what’s going on with him. Let him know that you’ve noticed he hasn't quite been himself and that he’s seemed bummed lately. Ask him what’s up. Listen to him without trying to fix him or his situation. Notice if he asks for help or if he needs someone to just be there, and by god, just try to be an ear for him in that convo. You can ask him if he wants feedback, but this step is to try and understand him, not to fix the problem (even though he is technically your problem).
If you sit around like a martyr, not saying anything or taking care of your needs, you’ll end up resenting him for sure. So go for the middle ground where there’s room for everyone to be where they’re at.
Who knows? There may be a totally fair reason he’s been negative, and you may decide to suck it up for a while. But if that’s not the case, I encourage you at another time to let him know how his negativity is hard for you. (Enter step three.) Don’t blame him for making you feel bad, or make excuses for yourself, just the facts, ma’am. Then, my friend, tell him what you’re gonna do about it. You may need to take a bit of space, give him a raspberry when he acts like too much of a downer, or some other thing that allows you to distance yourself from his meh vibes. Explain to him that you’re not doing this as a punishment but as a way to try to take responsibility for your own reactions and for how you treat him. The thing about relationships, even ones with the most healthy and well-adjusted people, is that we need to have boundaries. You need to understand that your BF is entitled to his negativity, as equally as you are to taking care of yourself around it. If you communicate in a forthright and compassionate way, then he will have a choice to make: either he looks into the source of his woes and starts curbing his negativity, or not. To be fair, it doesn’t always feel possible to change your attitude just like that. If you sit around like a martyr, not saying anything or taking care of your needs, you’ll end up resenting him for sure. So go for the middle ground where there’s room for everyone to be where they’re at. Good luck!
XO,
Jessica
The Mission’s resident advisor gets booked months in advance by San Franciscans seeking help with all kinds of relationship issues. So we asked Jessica if she’d come on board to do a weekly advice column, Truth Talk, for The Bold Italic. If you have a burning question for Truth Talk with Jessica Lanyadoo, you can post your question anonymously here or email her at truthtalkwithjessica@gmail.com, and check back on Wednesdays to see if she has an answer for you.