What To Do When Your Partner Doesn’t Support You

The person that you have married should be someone who has your back. They should want to support you in the way that they expect you to support them, and part of that support involves everyone pulling together in the house. Whether you are a housewife or not, a working mother or not, you should never be left to do absolutely everything without help.

Unfortunately, some people believe that just because they go to work all day outside the home, the person inside the house has all the time in the world to pick up the slack. It doesn’t work that way, especially when you have children to chase after. As a partnership, you should be working these things out together and yet if your partner won’t communicate, you’ll be staring down the barrel of divorce settlement before you can blink. You both deserve to have communicative, supportive people in each other, but if you aren’t getting that support it’s time to learn what to do about it. Below, we’ve got some suggestions of how you can get through it when your partner is unsupportive.

1. Talk. The very first thing that you can do is sit down together and take it in turns to talk. Discuss your feelings as well as how their response makes you feel, and you will find that you can start to move forward once you understand the problem from both sides.
2. Stop saying you’re fine when you’re not. As a mother, you’re going to take on the world and you can’t help yourself – we all do it. However, you have to stop doing that if you know you’re burning out. Your partner is not a mind reader so when you say you’re fine they’ll take that to mean that you are fine! Instead, work on saying that no, you’re not okay and you could use their help.
3. Draw up a list of things that you each do in the house – including the childcare together – and divide everything in half. Your job as a mother is to be with the kids, but your job also includes all the housework – and it shouldn’t. So, they do their job outside the home, you do your job with the kids and you BOTH should sort the housework. Why? Because you both live there!
4. Ensure that your partner doesn’t misunderstand what you’re saying. If you have a specific need, be specific in your wording about it. Be direct and kind in your wording and if you still feel dismissed by them, this will need some further reflection together.
5. Take some time to breathe. If you still don’t feel as if you’re being heard, take a moment apart to just center yourself and breathe. You need time to calm down and not say things that you may regret later. The solutions will always come to you after some time to think.
6. Seek help. When it comes down to it your relationship needs some help. Find a professional to help you out and you will find that you can gain support elsewhere.

This is a collaborative post.