Shoving the neglect in our relationships

Emotions play a big role in our life. They are active and alive twenty-four hours a day, even in our dreams. Emotions literally tell us what to do with our life, family, job, career and ourselves. If we don’t control the course that our emotions run, we might be heading down the road towards destruction.

There are times when neglect is a little more straight-forward. In some cases, one person in the relationship is fairly explicit with what they need and the other person neglects that need, either directly or indirectly. This is absolutely poisonous to a relationship.

“There is nothing that can make one partner resent the other faster than neglect. As we already know, we enter a relationship in order to get certain needs met. When these needs are intentionally or unintentionally ignored, it causes the person whose needs are not being met to feel angry, offended, ashamed, demeaned and unsafe in the relationship. This is a terrible position to be in,” says Benjay Amos, a civil servant.  When this happens, the partner who is being neglected sometimes uses this to justify having an affair, Benjay says further.

If you are in a situation where your partner intentionally and consistently ignores your needs and shows no indication that they intend to change that behaviour, you might need to sit down, take a look at the relationship and assess whether it is working. It only takes one person to split a relationship, but it takes two people actively working at it to make a relationship successful.

Amina Ahmed, a marriage counsellor based in Abuja, says, “neglect is an ugly word and usually misunderstood. Just because a partner is busy does not mean the other is neglected. Neglect is being invisible to the other person and having one person think and act like they have no other responsibilities to anyone but themselves”

She goes on to say that negligence in a relationship is a primarily an issue of communication.  “You need to learn how to communicate what you need to your partner in a way that they can understand. If they consistently have neglected an issue that you have communicated in the past, then you need to discuss this in plain terms,” Amina Ahmed says.

Whatever your position, you need to temper your needs with a bit of reality. Understand that your needs will not be met at all time neither will your partner not be there for you at all times due to one reason or the other. Your partner may fail to take care of your needs from time to time but its best you table your grievances than taking the stance of neglect in the relationship.

Relationships require work. Anyone who has been in a successful, long-term relationship will testify to this. Sometimes, you have to forgive your partner a bit. Sometimes you have to accept them for who they are. Sometimes, you have to come to terms with the fact that you cannot always get what you want because for you as a person, you are not that perfect and you cannot expect your partner to be either. Remember, we are all imperfect human beings.

However,  you always need to communicate with your partner. Sometimes, this is not so easy, but the cost of not communicating is neglect. And as we know, neglect can destroy a good relationship. So take the bold step in shoving the neglect in your relationships.