Why Don’t You Just Tell Him That?
How facing my worst-case scenario made me realize the value in being upfront.
Haris and I sat outside my favourite Korean fried chicken joint while we waited for our to-go order. I was expressing my frustrations about the disproportionate levels of effort that were becoming apparent between Brian and I, when Haris interrupted me:
“What are you scared of?”
I stopped talking but my mouth hung open.
I didn’t know.
I sat in silence for a moment while Haris watched the cogs in my head start turning in a different direction. Finally, I said:
“That he’ll leave.”
It was a confession not only to Haris but to myself. I hadn’t realized I was scared of something until I spoke those three words.
In less than 24 hours, my worst fears would come true. Okay, well — Brian didn’t leave me, I left him — but still! That exact situation was what I was looking to avoid.
It’s not until I was acquainted with the very thing I wanted to veer away from — the thing I refused to acknowledge was a possibility — is when I understood how necessary those unfavourable circumstances were.
Establishing boundaries and expressing wants and needs is a foreign language to me. Because I don’t have healthy, communicative relationships to model my own intimate ones after, I spent near all my time wondering when my damn boyfriends would clue into my passive-aggressive behaviour and read my mind already!
The concept of being forward and open wasn’t something I began to grasp until last year. It wasn’t for my lack of exposure either — I’d read many books and articles and listened to podcasts about effective communication — but personally applying theory is major league compared to learning about it.
To emphasize my limited scope of effective implementation, I present to you:
Jasmine’s 10-Step Guide on How to Make Your Partner Resent and Wish They’d Never Met You:
Step 1: Discover something your partner does or says that you don’t like or appreciate
Step 2: Pretend it doesn’t exist — tell yourself, “I’m fine”
Step 3: Continue to experience thing you don’t like or appreciate
Step 4: Employ roundabout behaviour targeted at your partner to get them to stop. This includes bringing up and making a big deal out of things that aren’t related, being hostile and short, etc. There’s wiggle room to let your personality shine in this step
Step 5: When they ask what’s wrong, tell them, “I’m fine.” Make sure they feel that period
Step 6: Notice their increased contempt and lack of mind-reading
Step 7: Repeat step 4 with more intensity. If it didn’t work the first time, give it another go — get creative!
Step 8: Have the audacity to wonder why they are having a difficult time wanting to be around you
Step 9: Explode about what the original problem was that has now been repressed for weeks, if not months
Step 10: Await the magic words: “yeah — this isn’t working for me.” This step may happen immediately or after an extended period of time but if you were thorough in steps 1–9, step 10 is inevitable
Unfortunately, I can’t take credit for designing the program. I know many people before me who have utilized this fool-proof approach and yielded great results. However, I can ascertain its high efficacy rate — even after putting my own spin on it.
At some point in our conversation outside Chicko Chicken, Haris asked me:
“Why don’t you just tell him that?”
“Tell him what,” I asked.
“What you just said to me — that you feel disappointed he hasn’t been putting in effort the way he said he would.”
I wanted to retort but I didn’t have anything to say. It seemed logical enough — no parties were left guessing what the other meant and it would offer an opportunity to reestablish if our expectations were on the same page — but the thought of utilizing anything other than my 10-step approach made me uneasy.
I caught myself thinking, “the longer I draw it out, the more time he’ll have to get his shit together.”
By choosing to be indirect, it became possible for me to skirt around the elephant of incompatibility we occasionally acknowledged but refused to seriously consider as the culprit for why our needs couldn’t be met simultaneously.
That night, I mustered enough courage to tell Brian how I was feeling and by some divine stroke of empathy, I managed to do it in a way that wasn’t accusatory or laced with ridicule. I was clear, concise and it was easier than I anticipated it being.
It became clear in our brief discussion that despite him “really liking me” and “understanding he’s not good at this,” we weren’t seeing eye-to-eye. His walk was a shell of what his talk promised.
May Pang wrote a great article on the sunk cost fallacy. She says,
Money, time, and effort previously invested have a significant impact on influencing people to stay in unhappy relationships. […] the longer the relationship has been going on, the more time people were willing to continue investing in a failing relationship.
Did the current cost outweigh the current benefits with Brian? I was having a good time but there was no room to explore depth with this person. Was I going to stay and make excuses for him with the hope that eventually he’d become what I wanted? Did a “fun time” warrant me dismissing the one-sided nature of our relationship — this early on?
It’s not like I haven’t done that before.
In my declaration of wanting reciprocity when it came to effort, Brian made clear it wasn’t possible for him at this time. There were many paths to discover how our needs could be met simultaneously and frankly, I didn’t care which one we took. But the prerequisite to getting on a path was the willingness to want to explore a road in the first place. I stood at the fork in the road and checked my watch multiple times while Brian said, “yeah, I’ll meet you there”. Maybe he had intentions of doing so eventually — but I didn’t feel like waiting.
Sensical Jasmine wanted something different. I knew it would only be more challenging to cut ties as more time passed — better to cut my losses now than wish I did it a year from now. With a semi-formal “I enjoyed the time we spent together” and a concluding “please don’t reach out to me in the future,” I snipped a relationship that left something to be desired from the get-go.
I chose the road that didn’t include Brian.
Break-ups aren’t fun. Whether you’re the one initiating the breaking up or the one being broken up with, it all sucks. Take it from me — I’ve been on both ends (more than I care to admit) — it never feels good.
But having my “worst-case scenario” come to fruition made me realize it was actually my best-case scenario in disguise. Sure, the acute discomfort feels worse in the moment — especially at the bottom of a bag of flaming hot Cheetos — but the chronic frustration and feelings of being under appreciated would pay out in dividends sooner rather than later.
May says,
The best relationships are when both people intentionally choose to be there and perform acts of love every single day.
Being forward and candid forced us (me) to cut to the chase. I couldn’t pretend something was a certain way when it wasn’t — or worse, make excuses for somebody to convince myself they’re worth keeping around. It became clear to me the comforts of yesterday — the fun, the laughter, the mid-dinner prep make-out sessions — had expired. Part of me wanted to continue chasing what was — all the while ignoring new information as it presented itself.
I’d always been scared of declaring what I wanted, out of fear the other would leave. But not everyone is meant to stay — why wouldn’t I want to find that out as soon as possible?
Haris said, “imagine what your life would look like 6 months from now if you decided to continue your relationship with Brian.”
As I lay curled up in the fetal position in bed and plowed through slice after slice of peanut butter toast while watching Chicken Shop Date videos on Youtube, I knew I didn’t want what that future offered. The image of me riddled with stress-induced acne and being emotionally bankrupt is enough for me to know I made the right choice.
But who knows? Maybe if I’d decided to stick it out another couple months, I would have finished more than once.
A girl can dream.
