The Midults: My girlfriend is always undermining me
I've been with my girlfriend for two years and we've always got on really well as a couple in social situations, backing each other up and taking one another's side. Lately, though, I've found her starting to undermine me in little ways when we're out with friends – disputing my account of things that happened; contradicting me on little details; always needing to have the last word. I'm not naturally argumentative but it's starting to really bother me. She's really lovely and cosy in private. Should I talk to her, and what should I say?
– Downcast
Dear Downcast,
Some happy, lifelong marriages involve one partner loudly and aggressively criticising the other in public. 'That story is so boring,' she squawks. 'Are you still talking??' he sneers. For many of us – as observers – this is both baffling and extremely unpleasant to be around but, hey, the heart wants what the heart wants and it's a dynamic that works for them. It is not, however, a dynamic that is working for you. At the moment it only bothers you but who's to say that, further down the line, it won't distress you. If you do not like this dynamic then you should address it as it is unlikely to go away by itself. Unfortunately, these things, left unchecked, will have a habit of either bedding in or intensifying and that has the potential to make you very unhappy. Unhappy people who actively avoid confrontation risk withdrawing, proving their point – or demonstrating their hurt – through action (or inaction), which could start to meaningfully alienate you from each other.
Scary, right? If you bring this up, you might start a huge row or hear something you don't want to hear. It's only when you begin to understand what's happening, you can work out what to do. At the moment you are a bit hurt and a bit baffled – understandable but rendering you powerless. It is often at this stage of the relationship that you need to find courage. It is important to feel able to talk to the person you are with about what is going in between you. We know that sounds as though we're stating the bleeding obvious but it can feel frightening. Or exhausting. And lots of us duck it where possible. Be brave, Downcast. It will give the relationship the best chance of growing or, failing that, it will give you the best chance of growing.
Right at the beginning of love affairs, we tend to find it sweet when our new and adored person gets things wrong. Or we don't even see it. Later, we may start to find it annoying but, hopefully, we make a decision – based on the bigger scheme of things – to right-size our responses; to look beyond. This is not denial. It is love. There is a chance that she may not know she is behaving in this way; that she had some kind of combative/judgmental elements to her early life. A fighty or one-upmanship-y childhood. Even a puritanical education may have nudged her towards becoming a kind of fact-checker. It doesn't really matter if an amusing anecdote is 'right', does it? The listener doesn't care whether it was Whitstable or Brixham; whether it was raining or snowing. How much does it matter to her that she is right? Would she rather be right or happy?
You have various courses of action open to you. You could tell her that it is deeply uncomfortable for everyone when she does this – but that is actively shaming and makes it about the audience rather than your connection. 'Everyone thinks so…' is always a bastard thing to say unless it's around a compliment. You could try a bit of a shock approach and respond in the moment, in public, by saying something like 'I find it very difficult when you talk to me like that.' However, seeing as you have established, in your letter, that this is a kind of performative feistiness that rises in her only when you are among other people, that could cause trouble. We would think that a quiet moment, when you are alone and all is calm, might be a productive time to say something like, 'When you criticise me in public – which I feel is happening more often – what are you trying to tell me? I find it difficult, in the moment but, if there is something you need me to know, I would really like to hear it now. I don't love those public moments, which hurt my feelings, but I do love you and I'd like to understand why it happens and also look at my part in it.' What a man, Downcast! We obviously have no idea how this will go. But for both your own personal development and the future of this romance, it feels crucial that you are able to have the conversation.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
My haunted Cotswolds house that proves hauntings are real. NADINE DORRIES thought she'd found her forever home. Then after family deaths and sinister encounters that terrified her children, she called a priest...
Do you believe a house can be haunted or cursed? I didn't – until I lived in one. Last month, I read about the tragic death of Beverley Allen, the first wife of former F1 boss Christian Horner and mother of his teenage daughter, who passed away at 58 after a cancer battle.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Killer sudoku 981
Click here to access the print version. Normal sudoku rules apply, except the numbers in the cells contained within dotted lines add up to the figures in the corner. No number can be repeated within each shape formed by dotted lines. To see the completed puzzle, buy the next issue of the Guardian (for puzzles published Monday to Thursday). Solutions to Friday and Saturday puzzles are given in either Saturday's or Monday's edition.
Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Telegraph
Sacred Mysteries: Out of the ashes, an artist in search of the essential
The fire that burnt down St Mel's Cathedral, Longford, in the early hours of Christmas Day 2009, was so intense that the limestone pillars each side of the nave spalled and cracked in the heat. As with Notre-Dame in Paris, the effects of the fire were unexpected. The roof was destroyed and the floor fell through into the crypt. But a 19th-century painting on canvas of the Holy Family survived unscathed. St Mel's Cathedral serves the diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise. Both ancient foundations, Clonmacnoise was largely abandoned by the 13th century, and Ardagh had been ruinous since 1496, though the foundation stone for the cathedral at Longford was taken from the ruins. The dioceses were united in 1756. The neo-classical cathedral of St Mel's at Longford, begun in 1840, was large enough to seat 1,100 people. The architect was John Benjamin Keane, who had designed Gardiner Street Church in Dublin. The completion of St Mel's was delayed by the Irish Famine. After the fire in 2009, with the economy rocky and unemployment high, it could not have been rebuilt had it not been insured. It reopened for worship five years later, for Christmas 2014. The interior is white and light, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The most striking features are the 22 dark grey Ionic limestone columns dividing the nave from the aisles. Surviving from the old cathedral are two windows made in 1932 by the studio of Harry Clarke. A pleasant surprise to me in the new cathedral are the 14 Stations of the Cross. Because these scenes from the Passion of Christ are, in many churches, products of the 19th century, an era of uneven artistic merit, I seldom find them things of beauty. But Bishop Colm O'Reilly, who set about the reconstruction of the cathedral that he had known all his life, got Ken Thompson, born in Cork in 1946, to carve the stations that were to replace the burnt wooden paintings. Thompson had been influenced by the work of Eric Gill, and says of his own stations: 'The style of the carving is hieratic. My sympathies lie with early pre-Renaissance carving where the artist, in search of the essential, avoids over-realistic representation.' The Bath stone panels for the stations are 55in high and 46in wide. The technique is of bas relief, with the figures raised 1½in from the background. The background is painted a light blue and the lettering picked out in a terracotta colour. The dished haloes of Jesus and the saints are gilded. Each station is accompanied by a quotation from Scripture. 'The gestures of the figures in these panels are, in a sense, liturgical, acting out what has been prophesied about the Suffering Servant in the Old Testament.' A detail in several panels is of green shoots springing to life. They are visible on the hill of Calvary through the door of the tomb in the 14th station, which bears the quotation: 'Why seek you the living among the dead?' It shows Jesus being laid on a stone slab by his disciples. 'This stone slab represents the altar on which Christ's eternal sacrifice is re-enacted in every Mass.' An angel is shown coming from heaven bearing a plaque inscribed 'Gloria' – a memory of the Nativity, a record of what St John calls Jesus's glorification on the Cross, and a prophecy of the Resurrection. Above the door is carved Nika, 'Victor'. I learnt about the new cathedral from a Sister of Mercy, Angela Bracken, who lives in Longford; otherwise I wouldn't have known of it.
