Why Your Partner Never Seems To Listen To You

It’s probably not what you’re saying, but rather what you can’t bring yourself to say.

By Cheryl Gerson
Last updated on Mar 15, 2024

Photo: annastills | Canva 

Couples in healthy relationships know how critical effective communication skills are for long-term happiness. However, learning how to communicate effectively with your partner isn’t always straightforward. When you repeatedly ask for what you want in your relationship, and your partner doesn’t deliver, complaining about the problem feels like the only option you have left.

Instead, let’s slow down and figure out where the problems arise, what you need to say, and how you can say it more directly.

Here’s why your partner never seems to listen to you.

As humans, we are born complaining, entering life with a wail.

Adults are hard-wired to respond to a baby’s cry. That may be why certain kinds of complaining work well, and others are said to be deadly.

Several websites have quoted a study that shows how “complaining” shrinks the brain’s hippocampus. It seems so intuitively reasonable it almost doesn’t matter this study was focused on the effects of general stress on the human brain and not the specific effects of complaining. Complaining asks others to pay attention when something’s wrong. When it works well, it can produce results.

But there’s one kind of complaining that backfires every time: the complaint that takes the place of a wish.

“You don’t bring me flowers anymore” comes from a wish your partner would bring you flowers. Likewise, “You never take the garbage out” is a wish your partner would pick up their end of the housekeeping.

The person complaining thinks they’re asking for what they want.

How often have you been frustrated by a partner who gets defensive when you ask that way? “You don’t…” often begins an argument. Then, not only do you not get what you want, but now your partner is angry. Why is that?

You wish your partner would treat you the way you would like to be treated. You’ve probably demonstrated the behavior you want over and over, and they’re not getting it. You’ve been very patient and tried again and again, and they still don’t get it. Why wouldn’t you be disappointed? Why wouldn’t you be highly frustrated? And now you’re pointing out what they’ve missed, and they get mad at you.

Maybe you’ve even told them — communicating in words! —what you want from them, and they don’t remember. You don’t want to tell them because they already agreed to do it, but they’re not doing it — or at least, not doing it the way you’d like. Doesn’t it make sense this would be the time to complain? Otherwise, aren’t you just giving in or giving up? If they loved you, wouldn’t they be on the same page as you? This is common to think about communication in relationships. But there are some problems with it.

Photo: nakaridore via Shutterstock

We enter relationships with well-established ideas of how partners should interact

You both have pretty fixed pictures of what it’s like to be a partner. But the source of your information is different. You bring the traditions — conscious and unconscious — of your respective families, who might be different. When your partner behaves according to their background, you may react poorly.

This is when, in couple’s counseling, you might say to your partner, “Any reasonable person wouldn’t act that way!”​ “Reasonable” in this case means your background.

Example: 

Maybe you like to be cuddled and comforted when you’re ill, and your partner would like to be left alone. If they act according to their way of loving, they won’t fluff up your pillows or ask if you’d like a cup of tea because that’s not in their picture of how you treat a sick person.

Conversely, they may push you away when you hover, which would be exactly what you’d like, but it’s too much disturbance for them. So long as you keep trying to show one another the “right” way to be, you will disappoint each other. You need to communicate better by using your words.

You don’t directly tell your partner how you’d like them to treat you

Be willing to “train” them. Telling someone once is not enough to undo years of habit, even when they have listened, understood, and agreed. Learning to share a mutual life is a long undertaking. When you don’t put in the effort, you’re pretty well doomed to disappointment. It’s easy to avoid the work and wish your partner had done it already! And that’s where this utterly useless kind of complaining comes in.

It may feel easier to be disappointed, as painful as that is, than to put on your big-kid pants and remember adult relationships take mature effort. It feels easier to complain to your partner that they’re not treating you “right.” (After all, when you were little, didn’t whining or crying get you that cookie?)

Photo: mavo via Shutterstock

You’re disappointed, and a little angry that you’re not getting what you want, perpetuating the cycle

You probably know acting angry won’t get it for you, so you complain. You’re probably not even aware this complaint is a passive-aggressive attack. Your partner knows it, though. They know you think they’ve been “bad.” So they will probably either defend or fight back. Maybe they will give you a laundry list of what they have done for you or come back at you with, “Well, you don’t …”

Now you’re facing off over the many disappointments you’ve had with each other, and you both feel bad. And you usually part ways in a huff. Neither of you feels satisfied or even that they’ve gotten their point across to the other.

Instead of complaining, ask specifically for what you need

Ask in a manner that says you deserve what you’re asking for. If you approach with the idea that your partner will probably say “no” — well, they probably will. If you expect your partner to want to do what you want, like when Jennifer Anniston’s character in The Break Up says, “I want you to want to do the dishes!”

You might be asking for the impossible. If you want to shame them into doing what you want, you may get action, but you’ll get resentment.

This is one of those times when your unconscious anger and resentment come straight through, and your message is lost. Instead, plan. Start with a conversation about what you want. This would be before the head of steam builds up.

Remember not to assume your partner can read your mind, so you want to be sure you talk to them so they know what you like. This is a vital step because once you know you are both clear on the subject, you can refer back to the conversation. If the conversation doesn’t seem to bear fruit, you can go into “reminder” mode. This is not the same as “nagging,” although we tend to mix up the two. This looks like, “Remember, you said you would … XYZ. Please do it now.”

If that’s not working, you can’t avoid feeling angry. Not only is your partner not doing as promised, but now they’re ignoring you. But do not complain.

Interrupt your own passive-aggressive approach

Tell your partner, “We had an agreement, and you’re not living up to it. That makes me angry!”Are you scared to do that? I can assure you expressing your anger is not harmful to anyone, even though your partner may not like it. Speaking anger directly is powerful. Try it out in the mirror if you’d like. Make the face that goes with anger. You may feel silly or scared and want to giggle. Don’t.

When someone is blowing you off, anger is the right feeling. Disrespect is not only harmful to you but also to your relationship. When you express anger directly, you preserve the connection between you. Complain about poor service or bond over shared complaints about a bad movie. But when it comes to getting what you want from your partner, speak directly.

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Cheryl Gerson is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and Board Certified Diplomate, in private practice in New York City.

Source: YourTango