How to deal with a negative SO

[Lolabunny09]

Hello,

Im currently in a relationship with the love of my life. Recently things have takend a turn for the bad. We are arguing a lot. I always try to be a positive person but he is very negative. He never sees any of the good that is in his life and only focuses on the bad. We have a cruise booked next week. Ive been bringing it up to ask if hes getting ready and im always meet with a baragge of negative comments about it. He doesnt want to even pack until next week. Hes driving to me and we are flying out from here but last week he told me he wasnt sure if his back would be ok. When i mention we could just book him a flight to chicago he was reluctent about that too. He finally told me hes worried something will go wrong and he thinks hell have heat exhaustion as well as a slew of other things. I wanted to do something for him that would relax him. At first he had seemed excited but hes managed to turn this into something negative. Im not sure what to do because at this point his negativity is spreading and our relationship is faultering because of it. I always try to be positive and listen to his complaints everyday. But i feel like he always goes on and on and will never listen or acknowldege my worries or problems like i try to do for him. So i feel like im stuck in this one way relationship where i only listen to him and im constantly being hit with everything negative in his life. Its starting to wear on me. I dont want to break up but im not sure what i can do to make our relationship happy again. He has told me he is upset with not being able to see me. Its been about a month and a half since weve seen each other but that makes his reaction to our trip even more confusing to me. Does anyone have any ideas on how to be with someone whos always negative?

[R&R]

Welcome to LFAD.

First, this isn't about you, it's about him. It is not your responsibility to make the relationship happy - that takes two people. He is the one who will want to change his attitude and work at it. If he doesn't see his behavior as bad, he's not going to work to change it. Have you brought it up with him? Does he even realize he's doing it?

I had an ex (notice ex) that was the same way. I tried to help him. For every negative, I would tell him he had to give me a positive. For every bad outcome, I wanted him to give me a positive outcome. I did it in hopes of changing his perspective and way of thinking. Needless to say, he was entrenched in this negative way of thinking and I ended up breaking it off. I don't expect someone to be positive or happy all the time, but when the view of his life was constant negative, everything was against him, etc - I didn't need that in my life. From my understanding, almost 5 years later he is still miserable and single.

[differentcountries]

I notice that your relationship is fairly new, starting in February this year. And you are in somewhat driving distance from each other, but you have not seen each other in 1,5 months. And he has possably some trouble with his health; back problems and easily getting a heat stroke/getting dehydrated - since he is a man he has most likely not shared with you any of his health issues yet. He misses you terribly and instead of being touched by this you think he is complaining. The possabilities for misunderstandings are endless.

He might be a "complainer" but you dont know him that well yet. Some people feel a lot of intimacy by sharing real or imagined problems. My SO complains every other day to me about his job, and I think it is lovely! I think I am the only one he really complaines to about anything. I tell tell him I will kiss all his troubles away and this a dynamic that works for us. Your dynamic is still new so I guess you still need to experiment with ways of dealing with things that can work for you. "Positive" can also translate as "too eager to move forward, does not really listen to my genuine concerns". Yes, and SO is often miserable because he cant see me, especially right before and right after visits. He will send me tons of emojis that are crying. I think that's adorable.

Anyway, about the practical issues with the travel: Leave it up to him to back, he is a grown man. He can drive up, or pay expensive last call plane tickets insted, that is up to him. If he gets a heat stroke he should be fine, there are doctors on board. He is nervous about the cruice for some some reason, let him be nervous without trying to "fix" it. You dont have to be in the same mental place all the time. You will soon meet him and will be able to talk in person.