If your partner is unsupportive of your career or your ideas for the future, it’s important to sit down and have a talk. But before you do that, you have to make sure your expectations are realistic.
First of all, it’s only fair to expect support from your partner. After all, you’re in this together and it’s important to have someone to lean on. So, it’s realistic to expect them to support you, your dreams, and the things you need to do to achieve them.
However, it’s not realistic to expect your partner to support you when you’re not supporting yourself by working towards those goals. Codependency is not something you want to foster in a relationship!
You should be able to do things for yourself without the help of a partner if you choose to! And, they should be there and ready to offer all the help and support that they can!
An unsupportive partner can ruin the relationship:
– The Importance of Mutual Support:
Mutual support in a relationship is vital. After all, you choose someone as your partner because they complement you physically, emotionally, and intellectually. If your partner is not supportive, they are not just failing to be a compliment, you are also forced to pick up their slack. That is not a reciprocal relationship and it can become toxic very quickly.
Providing support through good and hard times helps couples grow. Having a supportive partner will fuel your dreams and ideas, not to mention it will keep you inspired when things get rough. We all want a cheerleader in our lives, a partner who believes in us and encourages us to do our best to reach our goals.
If your partner is not doing that, you have the right to bring it up and talk about it.
How to Talk to Your Partner About Being More Supportive?
If you’ve determined that your partner is not supportive at all and you want to talk about it and how you are feeling, it’s important to approach this topic the right way.
First of all, this is not the kind of thing you should discuss when you’re feeling angry or any other negative emotion. Approaching the subject from a place of positivity will make for a much more productive conversation. Otherwise, your partner will get defensive and you won’t be able to communicate.
It’s important NOT to start the conversation by blaming them or presuming to know what they’re feeling. Instead, focus on how you’re feeling and why receiving their support is important to you. Give them concrete information and provide examples.
At the end of the day, you need to speak your mind because you can’t expect your partner to read it.
Their lack of support could be due to a lack of awareness, so they may not even know you needed that from them. Talking about it will allow you to lay it all on the table and express your expectations. After that, progress can be made and things may improve.
– What If Nothing Changes?
A heart-to-heart conversation usually leads to something positive. If your partner cares about you and your relationship, they will be invested enough in your needs to want to make an effort and add to your happiness. However, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, things don’t change even if you’ve made the effort to communicate and express your needs and feelings.
If nothing changes and this is very important for you, you need to be honest with yourself and determine if this is the kind of relationship you want to be in.
Do you want to be with someone who can’t be supportive of your goals and dreams? Someone who doesn’t care about it enough to encourage you and be there for you? Can your future with this person be a happy one or will this eventually lead to resentment?
The answers to these questions will help you determine if it’s time to move on from the relationship or not. In most cases, if you tell your partner that you don’t feel supported and it leads to no change whatsoever, it’s best to leave the relationship.
Why? Because you shouldn’t accept any less than you deserve. If you do, you’re just teaching that person that it’s okay to be unsupportive and you’re teaching yourself that it’s okay to settle.
Bottom line:
Healthy relationships are all about teamwork. If you’re with a partner who refuses to engage in that, it’s going to be very difficult to build something long-lasting and strong.
You deserve to have someone in your corner who can support you, cheer you on, and just be there for you. Though it can be very difficult to realize that your partner is not on your side and that you have to move on, that is a lot better than carrying a relationship on your own or with your efforts alone.