How to Manage Reactivity When Your Partner Is Not There for You

You know that your partner loves and cares about you, then something happens and your trust is deeply shaken. When you face a challenge, a medical emergency, or a family member in crisis, you want your partner beside you. When they don’t show up in a special time of need, you might feel shocked and shaken. You might start to wonder what the purpose of your relationship is if you don’t have each other’s backs in hard times.

While you are still feeling the hurt and grief of what you perceived to be an abandonment, you don’t want to make any big decisions about your relationship. But when you are feeling better you want to be able to discern about the relationship and if it’s right for you. Some understanding about how these perceived abandonments happen might be helpful.

First, it may be helpful to consider that what seems like an obvious time of need to you may not be so obvious to your partner. Your partner may have grown up in an environment in which people were not there for each other in the way you think is normal. Your partner may have a fear of becoming engulfed by you and losing themselves. If something like this is true and you understand it, it’s likely not as hard for you to find compassion for your partner.

However, when you begin a dialogue about the event in which you wanted your partner to be there for you, you expect that this can be owned. Ideally your partner can name the obstacle to caring and express compassion and empathy for how their behavior impacted you. If you are instead met with defensiveness, your perception of abandonment will likely escalate and you will begin to feel despair about reconnecting. 

If a defensive partner criticizes you and refuses to hear your pain about the event, they are likely fending off shame. They have, somewhere in the depths of their consciousness, decided that making a mistake like this means they are worthless or somehow bad or broken and that admitting to a mistake is equivalent to revealing this. This kind of shame often is hidden behind layers of defenses. Consistent healing work and mindfulness is needed to uproot this pernicious view.

If this is true of your partner, where does it leave you? You might choose to cultivate acceptance for what is currently true. You might choose to identify and accept the support your partner can offer and seek other kinds of support outside of your relationship. You still believe and trust that your partner is good and has good intentions. You certainly don’t believe they are somehow bad for not being there when you wanted.  

You might decide the relationship as it is is not sustainable and invest in creating a change. In this case, ask a couple of key questions:

• Does your partner want to know how to be there for you; and, if so, do they say yes to the things that are most important for you?  

• If there is a willingness, is there also a capacity? That is, has your partner done or are they in the process of doing the inner work that enables them to offer the kind of support that makes the relationship sustainable for you?

Often, questions like this can only be answered through an attempt to create new experiences together and reflecting upon them. Each day you can ask yourself, "Am I thriving in this relationship? If not, how much energy and willingness do I have to continue?"

In all of this, it’s essential to stay anchored in the validity of your own needs regardless of whether your partner is able to offer support around them or not. It’s also helpful to remember that your partner, like all of us, is doing the best they can and sometimes healing work can happen within a relationship and sometimes relationships need to end so that you both can pursue what’s most supportive.

Practice

Take a moment now to name three things that are essential for you to have support around in your primary relationship.