Are You Enabling Your Partner’s Bad Behaviour?
“I wonder how his wife is able to stand him!” I spat. My friend Khai swallowed his laughter, politely diverting the subject to the follies of humans and how patience was needed in dealing with the variety of base-driven mammals.
We were chatting about an associate who had hogged a conversation earlier. He was a small player in the TV industry, yet had painted himself to be a luminous figure who knew more than his actual portfolio.
When we ended the conversation later, I realized with amusement that it wasn’t my first time wondering aloud why a woman chose a man as a life partner or the vice versa. I recalled asking numerous times in the course of coffee and outings with friends my exact same conundrum each time I encountered a person I perceived impossible, “How can her boyfriend stand her?” or “How can his girlfriend bear to be with him?” The answers from my friends were always similar. Huge torrent of laughter followed by “Well, that’s because they are the same!”
Support is a huge component in a relationship, particularly weighted in the side of men. Men need it a little more than women; for women tend to value being validated as the ultimate feminine goddess by their man. And so, as good team mates, support is crucial. You support your partner in his/ her endeavours and you take their side in the tribulations that come about in life. Correct?
Yes.
But.
Do you really want someone who supports you all the time? Who worships you regardless of good, average or bad behavior?
When Support Becomes Toxic
I remember having a best friend in my early twenties. We occasionally stayed together as we were in between room rentals at that time. She was a fun, outspoken girl except for her behavior around relationships. I found her overly clingy and un-objective when in a relationship. Her boyfriend was the same, and together they were each other’s King and Queen. Anything outside their realm was lesser and wrong. They were the apex of existence and the world was a soundtrack to their romance.
When she pulled a tantrum due to bad service in a restaurant, her boyfriend would lovingly take her side. When she was pissed with a friend, her boyfriend nodded encouragingly, not once asking her to consider her friend’s point of view. When she spent a bomb on Singapore-sales shopping despite owing me money, her boyfriend said nothing. The over-coddlyness turned her into a Princess who thought her worth a lot more than it really was. I found myself having to be careful when her gorilla-man sat close by. Any slight jibe or constructive critic was ammunition for him to puff up and take her side. She probably found the protectiveness adorable for she encouraged it through the baby voices she made.
Far from maturing with age, my friend became a peevish brat who could only be tolerated around her ape-guardian. Needless to say, I found them unbearable and found myself distancing to a point of no contact. Her next boyfriend suffered the same fate. I don’t know how she is doing today for I never trust the manufactured tale of one’s Facebook post. I can predict though, that had the blind support rendered by a more neutered partner continued its course, she would have turned out to be utterly inhospitable to be with among others. Let’s hope she isn’t.
It was the first time I saw a human become a darker version of themselves with the presence of love and “support.” And of course as I grew up and navigated life, I saw this repeat itself in many other relationships, even if on a lesser scale. While relationships can make two people better, it can also make two people worse. As observed in my friendship case study, it can morph into something resembling a quasi-Master and Slave dynamic.
My uncle is another example. Highly principled and passionate in work and life, he has been lucky to be married to a hugely supportive wife who is capable, compassionate and selfless. As respected as he is within the community, he has also lost touch with some parts of the modern world. He has become the sort of person attached to the romance of a yesteryear that isn’t coming back. While values have changed due to complex lives, he holds on to archaic truths, despite new facts. This has made him difficult to speak with, and many opt to keep quiet during conversations lest a fight is sparked. His wife dutifully accompanies him for everything. She is smart yet in his presence, he is universally correct.
I admire their marriage. Truly I do. She is likely the best thing that has happened to him. But too much of a good thing can be bad. She never counters his opinion. She never checks him. And thus, he becomes more and more extreme in his ways. And lately, more and more bitter and isolated. Support gone awry perhaps?
One of the worst case of toxic support belongs to Grammy-award singer John Legend. His swimsuit model wife Chrissy Teigen was recently cancelled when her shockingly cruel messages to other women were exposed to the world. She told TV personality Courtney Stodden in 2011 to “Go. To sleep. Forever,” mocked singer and actress Lindsay Lohan by tweeting “Lindsay adds a few more slits to her wrists when she sees Emma Stone,” and publicly called “Teen Mom” star Farrah Abraham “a whore.” God knows how many unknown people she traumatized with her bitch-level meanness. Throughout all this, what did John do?
Her abominable behavior was all too known to him for they had been married for years by then. We wonder if he said anything about her behavior? We wonder if he looked at her cruel tweets and laughed. Maybe he teased her for being badass and justified her despicable behavior as Chrissy being Chrissy. Maybe in his mind, she was a dynamite in bed or a good woman because she was the mother of his children. He clearly didn’t care that the women his wife trolled lost sleep or fell into depression. He described himself as Chrissy’s “biggest cheerleader.”
Chrissy is cancelled today, but so should John. He encouraged her! His support possibly emboldened her tormenting streak. Your partner’s opinion typically matters significantly and relationships have broken up over character differences and differing principles. In this case, Chrissy obtained a free pass from her husband. Enabling at high throttle!
You Need To Call Out Bad Behaviour
It was clinical psychologist Dr Jordan B Peterson who articulated my intuitions eloquently in his new book “Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life.” In the limitations of my mind, I idealized that relationships ought to make a person better. If you’re unpunctual or tardy with your word, your partner should be able to tell you and you should endeavor to improve. Allowing it in the name of love is unethical for the world’s peace of mind. Your lover and best friend should be able to support you while also checking you.
Is it so wrong if your partner says you were irresponsible in a task you carried out at work? Is it so criminal if your partner says you have a know-it-all way that rubs people the wrong way? And as a partner, take off the rose-tinted glasses. Enough tyrants out there come back to a “supportive” wife/ husband who soothe and egg them on to more human terrorizing.
Granted as my friends say, many partnerships consist of the same sort of people, but two people are more often more different than similar. Surely we can influence each other to be better? Or does love somehow make flaws adorable? Imagine a woman giggling, “My husband is always so unpunctual, it’s so cute. That’s just him.” Or imagine a man saying, “My wife overspends, but it makes her happy.” And therefore “happiness” wins out because having the argument is a pain.
But arguments are not a bad thing. Don’t aspire to be the peaceful, we-never-argue-instead-we-talk couples. If you never argue, it’s likely because both of you don’t have strong opinions about anything. It’s likely you’re sweeping everything under the rug for low-level “peace.” You’re settling and calling it compromise. Then you tell whoever will listen that relationships/ marriage are places of incarceration. Then you defame the opposite gender. Dr Peterson articulates it better. If you’re not arguing, you’re simply not thinking! You’re choosing not to think about the issues in your relationship. Because two people together indefinitely bring out disagreements, so start talking.
In his latest book, and I paraphrase, Dr Peterson talked about how we are by ourselves not completely balanced in the way of yin and yang. Maybe you’re ambitious, and you lack the laidback needed to enjoy life. Maybe you’re overly passionate, and you need a steady hand to calm you down in moments of turbulence. It is in committing with a complementing being that balances you in a way that perhaps being alone cannot. Then there are two “yous.” A partnership like that keeps you on a better trajectory to human goodness.
The idea made perfect sense, even if we should not blind ourselves to this romance by discounting the difficult conversations, fights, compromise and general difficulty of co-existing with someone. Because that’s’ where enabling can start. Fear of confrontation leads to a one-sided relationship where the more dominant one gets his/ her way and sets the path for the rest of the relationship. The hard conversations are something too few people think about, in exchange for the hand they want to hold. It is the hard conversations that set the path of your relationship to greater destinations.
How many of us can name a boss we so dislike, or a person we find so grating to be with? And guess what? These people often have partners! These people actually have someone who look into their eyes with love! Look at the nasty comments on Facebook. Many of these keyboard warriors have their family as their profile picture. Sometimes the picture is that of a prostrated sleeping infant! These people have someone to support them! These people are also influencing progeny! Good God!
Shouldn’t we have higher standards to realise that our partners can be wrong? Or maybe we’re the monsters in the relationship, righteous in our methodology and pathological about our goodness. Unwilling to listen, except to a loving partner who hasn’t found the guts to say it out. When a cousin told me her husband forebade her from hanging out with her girlfriends at night because it didn’t look great, she took his side even though she wasn’t happy with the decision. While I give her credit for loyalty, I cannot help but ask; is this what being in a relationship is about? Supporting bad decisions in exchange for some weak version of a compromise? When you support a questionable decision like that, the utility of power for that “master” goes up. The relationship tilts a little more in his favour. Multiply that over the years.
Dr Peterson scoffs at the need to be constantly worshipped by a partner without eventually tiring of the undulating affection. In a live tour, he jokes about giving it a month before being utterly sick of it. “Your partner should be more on the side of who you could be than on the side of who you are. If she’s deluded or terrified enough to worship you in your current form, then this doesn’t say very much of her, and it certainly isn’t very helpful for you.
“You want someone who’s going to get in the way now and then. You want someone to contend with! Then it becomes an adventure. Then you have someone you love and respect. And that’s not a bad combination for longevity in a relationship.”
You want someone who will stand up and have their say. Not someone who submissively echoes your views and egregiously allows you to be more of your negative self; as evident in my earlier examples.
Is the role of the perpetually “supportive” wife or husband useful? No checks, no balances. People like Chaiman Mao, Pablo Escobar, Hitler and Osama bin Laden all had wives who I wondered played what role. A release? A balm to their soul? Much like going for a massage or taking a walk in the park. That was the utility the submissive wife played. This is not an article about sexism for there are men who find themselves enslaved to their wives too, yet the popular examples are lacking for them.
But it’s time, a partner has more utility than just being a balm for the soul.
We still see mini Maos and Escobars among us today. It could be a man or a woman. It could be your colleague or college mate. They have less power than our despots, but the power they wield in their relationships/ friendships and the enabling allowed by their “supportive” partners keep them entrenched in bad behavior.
Is Changing For Someone Such A Bad Thing?
This is hard because people do change for the worse.
I’ve seen how girls become weaker around a partner. I’ve seen how a man’s ego grows and swells next to a “supportive” woman. I’ve seen bad behavior thrive and the only apology ever exacted by a silently knowing partner is with a lazy and helpless “what-to-do smile.” The common excuses proffered are “He’s like that,” or “It’ll be World War III if I bring it up.” And therefore these supportive partners hone and groom their annoying partners, unleashing them to the rest of the world.
What is a relationship for? Some people just want to be loved. Some people just want a family and a feeling of completion. My idea of relationship would be perceived as privileged or Westernised by some but I believe that a relationship is for two people to make each other better. You should be better together. Not awful for others to stomach.
Change should be for the better. Change should make you more of you not less of you. Be wary if you are becoming smaller, more afraid and less happy. Not hanging out with friends because someone is possessive may not be a positive change. Not hanging out with an unproductive crowd because your partner feels you could do better may be your path to progress. You know your situation best, so therefore discern.
While popular belief implies that changing someone errs more on the wrong than right side, I see both sides of the debate. Change is going to be compulsory if you are in a relationship with someone better than you. Let’s spare the woolly conversations about how we are all equally good and how not one is better than the other. We can waste time on metrics, or we can just admit that sometimes we know. Sometimes as painful as it is, we know when someone is better than us (at least for the moment).
Self-improvement is a lifelong journey. You or your life partner should be there to help with that instead of blindly embracing you in the name of love. I give examples that I see often.
· If your partner has a problem with punctuality; don’t you think you should call him or her out? You not doing it is also enabling an unpunctuality which will affect a hundred other people in his work and community.
· If your partner talks too much in outings; shouldn’t you nudge him or her to give others the chance to speak while being a better listener?
· If your partner has extreme political views, should you not push back a little instead of blindly following him or her?
· If your partner is dull and not participative in outings; do you really think this is your partner’s best life?
· If your partner has no opinions and autonomy; do you really want to encourage dead weight?
· And if your partner is a know-it-all and arrogant; well why are you with him or her? Enabling and putting out a narcissist in the world is not making the world a better place.
The world is not a kind place to bad behavior. It’s better to be hurt by people who care about you, rather than people who don’t give a damn and tear you apart. Social media as evidenced in recent times, is terribly unkind.
But Fight You Must
Perhaps a lot of people avoid the hard conversations because it’s hard. But converse you have too. That is your one hope for a worthy relationship that stands the test of time.
I have a friend who found her boyfriend less manly and provider-like. Amid frustration and a great amount of patience, she pushed him to take up a more masculine role. It wasn’t easy and there were plenty of fights and talks of going separate ways.
And while her constant goading may seem harsh, she was steadily making him more capable. He became more active in social outings, more decisive and take-charge in the relationship. Nothing is perfect but he changed to a degree and the relationship is vibrating on a higher frequency. I say well done!
I know men need praise and hate nagging, but give a woman something to praise, then she’ll praise you. Don’t expect her to praise you when there is nothing to praise. And don’t take forever without verbalizing what you’re doing.
Some may argue that she was trying to change him on a fundamental level. Maybe there is truth, but there are many factors to account for like their different backgrounds and relationship histories. He could refuse to change; but then he would only be attracting a certain category of women who liked less manly men; and he wasn’t attracted to that, so there.
In summary, had he not changed, we can conclude that they were just not meant for each other. Nobody wants to be in a relationship where inadequacy and irritation are constant features. It doesn’t work. But he’s still there! Eager to be with her. Fighting for the relationship. More proactive and provider-like now. My friend actually made him a better man.
And that my friends, is what a relationship should do.
Make sure you’re enabling something big and beautiful :)
