Relationship Advice: What To Do When Your Partner Makes You Feel Unappreciated
Does Your Partner Make You Feel Unappreciated?
Does Your Partner Make You Feel Unappreciated?
Do you frequently feel undervalued by your partner or go out of your way to do something special for them, only to be met with a lackluster response? If you’re feeling unrecognized in your relationship, there are ways to repair the connection with your partner and move forward together.
Identify The Problematic Behavior
When you feel unappreciated, one of the crucial steps is to identify what your partner does that upset you. Is it possible that they are showing appreciation in their unique way? Everyone has a love language that reflects how they receive and express love and show gratitude.
What Is A Love Language
Love language refers to how you give and receive love in a relationship. You and your partner don't necessarily need the same love language to be happy together. Try to understand how your partner demonstrates their love and appreciation for you. Identify your own love language and then work together to find ways to adapt so you can love and be loved in the way you both need.
“Matching on love languages was associated with both relationship and sexual satisfaction. In particular, people who expressed their affection in the way their partners preferred to receive it experienced greater satisfaction with their relationships and were more sexually satisfied compared to those who met their partner's needs to a lesser extent.” — I Love the Way You Love Me
Words of Affirmation
Spoken words, appreciation, and praise; someone with this love language may enjoy frequent messages to ask about their day, uplifting quotes or memes, kindness, love notes, compliments, and encouragement.
Quality Time
Undivided attention where both partners are fully engaged and focused on each other. Turning off electronics and centering the interaction on face-to-face communication can support someone with this love language.
Physical Touch
Non-sexual physical affection like hand holding, cuddles, massages, and casual touch may be ideal for people with this primary love language.
Acts of Service
Doing things for your partner to make them feel loved and appreciated, such as taking over the chores so they can relax, filling their car with gas, or making sure their favorite snack is stocked, can please people with this love language.
Receiving Gifts
Gift-giving indicates affection and appreciation to someone with this primary love language. While the gift itself is part of the pleasure, the time and effort that went into it can also factor into their joy.
Define Your Expectations For Appreciation
A relationship is an emotional partnership where both partners should be able to rely upon each other for love, support, and appreciation. Though “thank you” is such a simple phrase, it can mean the world to some people. However, everyone doesn’t have the same ideas about when and how to show appreciation. It can help to have an open, honest conversation with your partner about how you both would like to be treated.
Signs Your Partner Takes You For Granted
- They never thank you when you do something for them.
- Your partner doesn’t do a fair share of work around the house.
- They frequently make plans without asking or including you.
- Your partner doesn’t seek your advice or opinion.
- They don't try to be romantic or make you feel loved.
- Your partner doesn’t celebrate special occasions, often leaving you disappointed.
- They are unfaithful to you.
- Your partner doesn’t consider your feelings or dismisses your concerns.
- They don’t ask about your day.
- Your partner makes you feel like you’re not good enough and always need to do more.
- They show no regard for your time and don’t mind making you wait.
How Feeling Unappreciated Can Affect Your Relationship
If you feel like your partner doesn't value you, it can affect your relationship and even your health in various ways.
Mental And Physical Health
Studies show that healthy, loving relationships support good mental health. However, the opposite can be true. If the connection you share with your partner is harmful or destructive, the stress of the relationship can lead to chronic illnesses like heart disease, and stress causes many physical symptoms like headache, stomachache, and muscle tension.
Blame
You may blame your partner for not loving you or showing appreciation the way you want. That blame can become anger or resentment if you don’t find healthy ways to express and process it.
Eroding Emotional Intimacy
The more time that passes as you feel unappreciated and undervalued, the further the emotional intimacy in your relationship erodes. The complex emotional bond you share with your partner is typically the foundation of the relationship; without it, things may get worse.
What To Do When You Feel Unappreciated
If you realize your partner takes you for granted and doesn't properly value what you do for them, it doesn’t necessarily mean the relationship is doomed. Open, honest communication and a willingness to adapt for each other can help you reestablish your connection and find ways to make each other feel loved and valued.
Express Your Concerns And Feelings
Talking to your partner and explaining how you feel is crucial to working past the problem and rebuilding your relationship. Try using “I” statements, such as, “I feel unappreciated when..” Be specific and avoid an accusatory tone. Communication and compromise should be the goal. Ask if there are ways they would like you to show your love and appreciation for them and how you can find a balanced middle ground.
Identify And Explain What You Want
Before you can ask your partner for it, you must first know what you want. Take the time to examine and evaluate your feelings and put them into words.
- What makes you feel appreciated and valued?
- Describe the reaction you expect from your partner in certain situations.
- What behaviors from your partner make you feel unappreciated?
Model The Appreciation You Want To Receive
Some people learn best through demonstration. If you’re feeling unappreciated, you can try modeling the type of behavior you’d like to receive from your partner, giving you an example they’re sure to understand when you talk about how you’d like to be treated.
Prioritize Your Self-Care
While you should be able to count on your partner for care and support, remember that you are responsible for your own mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Make self-care a part of your daily routine, ensuring you get plenty of sleep, exercise, and healthy food.
Recognize When The Relationship Is One-Sided And Unhealthy
If you’ve already expressed your concerns and repeatedly tried to connect with your partner, but nothing seems to make any difference, it can be essential to know when to recognize you’re in an unhealthy, one-sided relationship, and take steps to safeguard your emotional well-being.
How Couples Therapy Can Help Improve Appreciation And Communication
If you feel like your partner takes you for granted, consider working with a licensed therapist online through a virtual therapy platform focused on relationship issues like Regain. Therapy can help you and your partner develop communication skills to effectively express your thoughts and feelings to each other, as well as how to understand each other’s love languages. You can also learn coping skills to manage stress and conflict resolution to work through problems.
The past few years have sparked a huge interest in various therapy delivery methods. Researchers at the American Psychological Association revealed that online and in-person therapy provide similar results. Virtual treatment is generally less expensive and requires a shorter wait before speaking with a therapist. Studies show that couples therapy is also equally effective virtually and face-to-face. Teletherapy platforms additionally provide connection to a comprehensive selection of mental health treatment providers, making it simple to find a therapist who makes you feel comfortable and fits well with your personality and circumstances.
Takeaway
Feeling unappreciated by your partner can lead to various emotions that may strain your relationship. The information in this article may offer insight into recognizing when your partner takes you for granted, what you can do about it, and how couples therapy can help you communicate effectively.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Appreciation
What does it mean to be unappreciated?
Simply put, this experience means that in one situation or another, you've felt that your value or contribution isn’t enough. This manifests in different ways and can spring up from several different contexts. So, the first step to knowing if you’re feeling unappreciated this is assessing the context where you’re experiencing it.
For example, you may be feeling a lack of recognition at work. In this case, you probably felt like you were doing more work than your colleagues, even though you received the same pay or praise as them. Or, you may have felt that you’re always expected to step up and do extra work, even if it’s outside your job description and you’re not getting paid for your extra efforts.
In a partnership, not acting like you're enough can look like your partner always prioritizing other people or tasks above you. For example, instead of spending time with you, they may always be spending time with other friends. Or, you may have felt that in terms of work around the house or in the partnership, they don’t pull their own weight. You may be feeling like you do all – or the vast majority of – the hard work and heavy lifting in the partnership. This can also be a sign of this in your family or home dynamic.
How do you deal with undervalued emotions?
If you’re feeling unappreciated, you should start by examining yourself. Remember, feeling unappreciated doesn’t mean that the people around you don’t notice you. They may not see the patterns in their behavior and they might not understand how their actions are hurting you. So, the first step to dealing with feeling unappreciated is talking to the person who makes you experience these feelings.
This could mean asking to talk to your boss and explaining how the extra work that you felt expected to do is outside the purview of your contract. Talking through the feelings is the first step, because in many cases, the other person wouldn’t have guessed that you felt so unappreciated.
Then, you should talk through and settle on a plan for real behavior change. This means that, in whichever context you’re not being recognized in, you should have some ideas to propose how changing the dynamic could make everyone acknowledge each other more. Also, it’s important to keep in mind that even though you can raise the issue, you cannot force anyone to change their behavior.
What do you say to someone who is unappreciated?
Before you find the right words to say to someone who’s experiencing this, there are definitely a few things that you shouldn’t say and do. Most importantly, you shouldn’t discount their emotions or tell them that they’re incorrect.
In terms of what to tell someone who’s experiencing these feelings, you can start with two simple expressions: “I’m sorry” and “thank you.” Both of these are straightforward ways to address their emotions of being unimportant. They say that you acknowledge how you contributed to their experience, and how you want to show more appreciation towards them.
The most direct way, though, if you want to help someone stop feeling unappreciated, is to simply ask them what they need. They may not have an answer immediately, and they may need some time to think about it. But, when you’re both open and honest about what makes you experience importance in a partnership, both of you can help the other be recognized and loved.
How do you know if you're being taken for granted?
In any partnership, whether it’s at work or home, there’s the chance that you’ll be taken for granted or unappreciated. There are a few key indicators that show up when someone is feeling unappreciated or like they’re being taken for granted. Some of the top ones are:
- No one can see (or chooses not to see) you.
- Thinking, “If I weren’t here, no one would miss me.”
- Interpreting people’s “I’m too busy” as more than excuse, but as something personal.
- Resentment towards the other person.
- Thinking that you are intruding on the other person’s time, skills, or energy.
- Thinking that you don’t add much value or contributions to the other person’s life.
All of these feelings and thoughts have been shown to contribute to depression, so it’s important to assess your emotions seriously and honestly when it comes to feeling this.
Basically, if you're constantly feeling that your presence or contribution in any partnership is going unnoticed or unappreciated by the people around you, then you might be being taken for granted. But remember, just because it's feeling this way doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true. Of course, the emotions are real. But, the others around you – your colleagues, your partner, your family – might also be having a hard time expressing their appreciation. If this is the case, this imbalance in the partnership can often be solved by talking through their emotions and listening intently and intentionally to their responses. From there, you can build better intentions and better actions towards each other into the partnership.
How do you know if your partner appreciates you?
If you’re experiencing the emotion of being unappreciated, you may want a sign from your partner that they actually cherish you. It’s easy to immediately jump to grand romantic gestures, expensive gifts, and outstanding proclamations of love. And while these things may make you seem more important in a partnership, they are only temporary fixes.
For a long-term and sustainable model, you should look to the day to day life of the partnership. While an expensive gift is great every now and then, having your partner help with the dishes every day or tell you that they love and appreciate you is actually a much better way to find value in the partnership. Maybe your partner isn’t outspoken, and this leaves you to think you're unappreciated. However, talking to your partner about how you are feeling can often prompt them to be more open and expressive when it comes to showing you how valuable you are to the partnership.
What do you do when you feel like no one appreciates you?
If you think that no one appreciates you or that you're unappreciated, the first thing to do is to look at the contexts where you felt this way the most often. Then, you should ask yourself, “What would need to change in each of these contexts to make me happier?” In some instances, it may be something that you need to change about yourself. In other cases, it might require an honest conversation with your boss, housemates, or partner about how you're feeling.
It really helps to make a list of these changes that you’d like to see in yourself and others. Then, consider which items on the list are immediately actionable. If there are behavior changes that you need to make, like stepping back from tasks at work that aren’t part of your job description or having a serious talk with your housemates about mutual respect, then start those right away. In many cases, talking out your emotions with your colleagues, partner, or family is the first step to solving this.
How do you make him appreciate you?
If your partner seems to be taking you for granted, or if you’re experiencing underappreciation by your partner, there are a few things you can try. First, talk to him. He might not know how you felt; he might be surprised to know that you felt like you’re being taken for granted. When you talk to him, though, be sure to use calm and neutral language, “I” statements, and be totally honest. This isn’t a blame game: it’s an attempt to make your partnership better.
Why do I feel the need to be appreciated?
How do you know if someone is taking advantage of you?
Why are some people not appreciative?
How do people act when they don't care?
What is a person who doesn't care about others feelings?
How do you know if someone is toxic for you?
- Previous Article
- Next Article