5 Protest Behaviors in a Relationship You Shouldn’t Put Up With

Are you dating someone with an anxious attachment style where she/he seems to always be unstable emotionally? Do you find yourself feeling stuck in dealing with them, or do you probably start thinking to call it to quit?

While it’s easy to walk away from relationship conflicts, the reward of trying to keep it together is very much worth it — as long as you’re sure this is the right person for you.

Just because your partner is anxious, that doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of becoming someone who’s more secure.

As much as it’s on them who should work on it, you can also try to be their best supporter. After all, a relationship is teamwork, right?

Most anxious use protest behavior when they’re upset/frustrated. It’s on their system that in order to get what they want, they should do something that sometimes falls into the negative or even toxic habit.

Depending on how long you’ve been together and whether there’s still hope to reduce these protest behaviors, you also need to know your limit. Here are the five common protest behaviors that anxious people usually use in their relationships:

Keeping score/always playing games with you

Anxious people always pay more attention to the dynamic of their relationship. They make sure the give-and-take is balanced, and if there are days when you slip, for example, you forget to call your partner during your busy day, they’d then think you did it intentionally.

This is due to their tendency to take things personally. The next thing they do is usually to keep score. This means they will refuse to text you back or pick up the phone until they think it’s “even.”

I know this sounds silly but anxious people like to play games with you and refrain from telling you what’s really bothering them. Though if we think about it, being upfront/honest can save lots of heartache and unnecessary fights in the relationship.

Intentionally trying to make you feel jealous

My ex in college used to like making me jealous by showing all the texts from girls who “hit” him up. Of course, being so young and stupid, I fell for it and went batshit crazy with my jealousy.

It was when I grew older that I realized that’s never the best way to make the relationship better. By feeling jealous and desperately trying to make him stay, it made me feel like I always had to do something so he wouldn’t leave me.

If you notice this behavior in your partner, the best way is to not react to it in the first place. Because if you do, then this behavior will become repetitive and let them know that they don’t need to involve someone else in the relationship to help you “prove” your love to them.

It’s very much unnecessary.

Withdrawing/pulling the silent treatment card

Is she being cold to you during arguments? Rather than having the talk, she chooses to ignore you and act like you don’t exist. Doing things like this can cause those in the receiving end to feel so frustrated and depleted.

Admittedly, I used to do this at the beginning of my relationship with my current partner. When the problem showed up, I’d run away by avoiding any contact with him, sometimes for days. And it drove him crazy.

So when we finally had that “talk” of things we should improve to avoid making the relationship into a toxic one, removing my silent-treatment habit was definitely on the list.

Threatening to leave

“If you can’t change that, then we should call this off.”

“We need to fix this one problem; otherwise, I don’t see why I should stay in this relationship.”

“I swear if you do it one more time, I’ll break up with you.”

And many other examples, but the point is this: they use the “breakup” or “leave” a lot because, for anxious people, it’s easier that way. It’s either they don’t know how to compromise yet, or they just don’t want to.

If the reason is the latter, then it’s safe to conclude that this person isn’t the right one for you because the relationship will not grow if you’re with someone who isn’t willing to compromise.

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Parting Words

Ignoring that your partner likes to use protest behavior, especially during a disagreement, will put your relationship in danger. There’s a higher chance that it’ll turn into an unhealthy state, and when that happens, trying to bring it back to how it used to be will be so much harder.

So it’s always best to prevent it.

Rather than putting up with it, try to proactively look for the best solutions to each problem in your relationship. If they pull the silent treatment, give them a kind reminder that such an act will bring the relationship nowhere.

Apply effective communications as much as you can; this means you and your partner should be willing to sit down and talk about a real problem rather than waiting for the time to “fix it.”

So far, I have yet to see couples lose from effectively communicating their needs and feelings to each other, but those who do the other way around always find themselves in a much more complicated and worse situation than before.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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You might also like these from The Good Men Project:

.. In Modern Relationships, We Cheat Every Single Day

Compliments Men Would Love to Hear More Often

.10 Things Good Men Should Never Do in a Relationship

It’s Not Just Sex That He is Longing For. It’s This

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