Have you ever tried to make your partner happy by doing the things that they want done, but after you have finished they actually aren't all that happy and complain that it isn't what they had envisioned?
This scenario happens to us all, well, all of us in a relationship. Your spouse or parent always says “just once I'd like you to clean the house instead of me.” So one day while your significant other or parent is out you decide to clean the house from top to bottom, and when you finish you excitedly wait for them to come home and be shocked and surprised but most importantly happy with you.
Your spouse comes home and enters the house, they walk to the bathroom without saying a word and after they finish and come out they continue to examine the rest of the house and stop in the kitchen or living room.
There are a few responses that could happen, the first is what you would expect:
"Oh My God! This place looks awesome you did such a good job honey!"
The other response is not what you would expect:
"Why didn't you do this? And you missed this, this, this, and this. And this is still dirty."
If you are the recipient of comment number two, don't be discouraged too much it's not your fault, first of all the person critiquing your work has to realize that if have done something you don't normally do they have to know that it will get better with more practice. Secondly, failing to notice that you deliberately went out of your way to make them happy is a sign of ignorance on their part, and they need to address what their problem is themselves.
There could be an underlying problem that they have with you, and it doesn't matter what you do because they are upset about something else you might have done.
A different underlying problem could be that the other person has to be in control all the time, they need to be right, and nothing anyone does will ever be good enough, you will never hear a thank you or a sorry from the mouth of this type of person. A narcissist feels that they are always right and never wrong, their way is the only way and you are an idiot for even thinking about doing it differently.
If you feel that you know or in a relationship with a person like this get out now.
If this were to happen to me I doubt I would do anything for that
person again, and if they asked me in the future to do something for
them I would bring this scenario up and remind them of what happened
last time I tried to do something nice.
Scott Goerz
