People don't like complainers. Plain matter of fact is your significant other sees you as the rock in the relationship, which is likely why the relationship works, and by complaining the foundation their attraction was built on was shaken.
I was actually thinking of the year when I was bedridden for several months and my life hung in the balance for the entire year and a female friend -- my best friend when I was a military wife stationed in Germany -- managed to get hold of me after not hearing from me for several months while I fought for my life and she went on for 45 minutes about her really minor whiny shit without so much as asking me how I was and I finally interrupted her and said something about how I didn't have the energy for this because I was fighting for my life.
That was the end of that phone call and I never heard from her again.
Good. Riddance. I absolutely didn't need another thing leeching away my limited energy that year.
I sometimes do something essentially the same as your former friend because I think the person with the problem probably wants to be treated like a normal person to feel as normal as possible instead of as a charity pity case. And to take their mind off of their completely obvious problems of the moment. IE, "I know my leg is cut off, we don't need to go over it and over it ..." I figure everyone in the world is smothering them with that so I will not do that.
However, I know that is a gamble and had I judged that wrong, and someone said "Hello can it be about me today instead of about you? just today? My leg... is gone... I'm not over it." I would NOT be hanging up and never call again.
I might possibly if the way you said it didn't clue me in why you were saying it. If I felt you really didn't want to hear from me at a time like that, then I'd be gone. gone. I thought I would be there for someone when the chips were down and they apparently do not value that from me. What a dumbass I've been.
I started this comment with the intention to say essentially "If you were worried at all that you did something wrong, don't." because even if there had been that initial mis-reading of intentions, that doesn't explain disappearing, so it's squarely on them.
But right at the end there while actuallly writing this, I realized there is a responsibility for communication on everyone's part. I realized there is a plausible sequence of events where I had good intentions and you had good intentions and I had reasonable reactions and you had reasonable reactions and still we both came away thinking the other person is not great.
So now I no longer know if I have a point. Well these worthless thoughts were free at least. :)
Other than my perpetually dicey finances, I am doing well. My health seems to have stabilized recently and, with that, I seem to no longer be suicidal.
I like to hear about my friends' inner lives. Not all the time, and I have to already care about the person first, but it gives me a sense of intimacy and trust. It feels impersonal and dissatisfying when someone maintains a "crushing it!" front too well. Like we are just Facebook acquaintances.
That sounds like something the likes of Jordan Peterson would say.
One of the best things my therapist did to me this year was get me off of Jordan Peterson. I was spiraling down in self-doubt because I listened to him so much.
It’s one hell of a miserable relationship if you can’t rely on your partner to have a receptive ear to listen to the things that bother you or make you sad.
The most confusing thing about the Jordan Peterson popularity was how some people seemed to take the opposite meaning from what I heard him actually saying. I don’t mean his detractors which took uncharitable interpretations but his fans. It was really bizarre since I listened to him enough to realize he wasn’t saying much he was just saying it in a way some group listened.
