DH nagging me to “be more positive”

[Dixie2016]

When I feel that I’m just being realistic rather than negative!
First example. Before the start of lockdown I told him that our visit to his parents over Easter didn’t look likely to happen. So I wanted to contact the accommodation to see if we could rearrange or get our deposit back. He wouldn’t do this as I needed “ to be more positive” and that it could still happen. Lo and behold it didn’t!

The latest example. His well past retirement age mum has a part time job. This job revolves entirely around people who have travelled to the U.K. after having been to multiple far flung exotic places around the world. Without giving too much away this job cannot exist without these customers. Currently MIL is on furlough. The place that she works at is unlikely to be able to open for the foreseeable future so they have announced redundancies. MIL is on the shielding list so even if her workplace opened back up she couldn’t work. So I said to DH that I imagine she will be one of those made redundant. He completely blew up at me because I should “ be positive!”.

He’s making out like I’m this negative, miserable harbinger of doom when I feel like I’m just being realistic. These are just two examples. I feel like it would be ridiculous for me to pretend his mum is going to be one of a handful of staff kept on just for the sake of “ positivity”. For me being positive has its place when there is a reasonable chance of a good outcome.

AIBU?

[NearlyGranny]

As for the relentless negativity, I get that from DH. Everything is pointless and rubbish. Except politically, he wants to look on the bright side (we voted differently so he takes any comment quite personally).

I cope by holding my tongue when he starts and my go-to comment is, "Well, we'll just have to wait and see."

[NearlyGranny]

It's not over-stocking if you've been squirrelling bits away for weeks and only buying what you will use. I had already set up a "no- deal-brexit" shelf which my DH scoffed at but has been very happy to live off!

[DollyDoneMore]

@Michaelbaubles

This is like the division between preppers and non-preppers. Before lockdown - at the end of February - I was encouraging colleagues to stock up their cupboards and make sure classes we’re prepared to start working from home etc. I got a fair bit of “it’ll all blow over” and some people basically humoured me but didn’t really listen - but I wasn’t the one with empty kitchen shelves, and my classes were supplied with everything they needed to work remotely. Maybe I did sound negative but it was the best thing to do!

If “preppers” hadn’t over-stocked on toilet roll, pasta, flour etc., and encouraged others to do the same, there would have been no shortages. It was a fundamentally selfish behaviour.

[Zeroenergy]

YANBU. My BIL is so similar to this and tells everyone my sister is negative when actually he just tries to see everything through rose tinted glasses which is a great thing but not appropriate to every situation, ever.
An example - a week ago it was his birthday and he planned a beach BBQ with family and friends. When the weather forecast said thunderstorms and torrential rain my sister suggested they stay home and do a nice buffet instead - he told her to stop being so negative.
Skip forward to the day before the bbq - thunderstorms still forecast and I also mentioned the forecast and was told I am negative too.
So.... there he was on the beach the next day trying to light a bbq in the pissing down rain, charcoal getting soaked through and he STILL insisted that people were being negative and irritating. Passers by questioned him as he was setting up his tent and said it assume you haven’t seen the forecast’ and he even moaned that they were being negative. It was utterly ridiculous.
That’s a trivial example but my sister can’t deal with how in the clouds he is about everything, even serious matters concerning their son. So I totally, totally get the frustration in your post.

[WelcomeToTheMountaintop]

My ex would accuse me of being ”always with the negativity” when I was trying to rein in his more outlandish brain farts.

My DH canbe a bugger for this. The latest one was to,buy some agricultural land 20 miles away, to build a house. I looked slightly stunned because a) it didnt have and would never get planning permission b) we are not in a financial position to spend £20k c) the location was unworkable for schools and jobs d) he hasn’t got the skill set to do it.

From previous experience, rather than point this out, I smiled and nodded and said yes dear, but please do some research. I haven’t heard anything about it since 🤣

The fact that he thinks big is one of the things I like about him, but dear god some of it is madness. I tread a fine line between not killing his enthusiasm for life and reining is some of the more bonkers excess.

[FluffyKittensinabasket]

Mumsnet is one of the most negative places! 😂

[InstantMango]

@TheHighestSardine

I used to be like this, and eventually DP got tired of it and pointed out how useless and negative it really is. Having never thought about it properly, it made me step back and look at myself - and I agreed.

Now I'll just not say those things and funnily enough it makes my mood better as well.

It may feel like realism to you, but it's deliberate cynicism and is undermining. Restrict yourself to either shutting up, or if you really can't stop yourself then a positive "Hopefully!" when other people are suggesting things.

Nailed it!
Interesting OP you have used negative language to describe your DH
" nagging" when hes asking you to stop doing something.
Maybe listen?

[vikingwife]

While people who are always negative are a drain, I find these Uber positive people so annoying. You see them on tinder listing meditation, yoga, spirituality & “positive vibes only!”

Can’t see them tolerating listening to even one of my true crime docos/podcasts.

There is a trope here of the uber positive “Bondi hipster” who by 10am already done their meditation, had avo on toast & gone on a soft sand run & had a spiritual breakthrough before morning tea.

This is opposed to the newtown hipster who is still wearing the same old grungey band t-shirt from the night before & only rolled out of bed at noon.

They are both wankers but will take the latter over the former, I can’t possibly keep up with someone who expects constant positivity.

Is there no social injustice or political issue which riles them up enough to have a rant ? I find the people to be wishy washy generally, because they don’t accept reality as you say & prefer to live in a fantasy land.

[Hiddenmnetter]

Yeah I agree OP YANBU- grow up and look at reality- we all enjoy a bit of head in the sand, but blithely pretending nothing bad will happen isn't positivity, it's idiocy. If someone says something "negative" the mature thing to do is evaluate the reasonable likeliness of it and then react.

I can see what people are saying about helping feel in control by being depressive, but having a realistic head on your shoulders if he (for example) asks about his mother's employment is not the same thing.

[MitziK]

@Dixie2016

Hahaha! That reminds me of something. DH recently asked if I thought he should buy some expensive kit so that he could start DJing to make extra money. He hasn’t DJ’d in over 20 years. He already has a lot of the stuff he would need and it’s rotting away in the shed. He also had this very same idea when we were saving up for our wedding. We don’t need the money now but really did back then. He never got around to any DJ’ing then so why would now be different? I’m a “dream killer” apparently. No I just don’t want our savings decimated for a mid life crisis hobby that I know he won’t even actually do.

All a DJ needs for most bookings is to be a qualified sound engineer making some cash on the side a set of leads to connect a laptop to the sound desk these days.

If he thinks people are going to pay for somebody to schlep up with a bunch of out of date vinyl, he's going to be very surprised.

[Bluntness100]

Op I’m sure your husband is fully aware his mother is at risk of redundancy or that there was a risk his Easter trio would not proceed.

Sometimes you don’t need to point it out like they don’t know.

[The8eves]

I also agree it's sometimes about not wanting to take responsibility. The "positive" person usually isn't the one sorting out the problem created, which is now much worse and harder to deal with.

An ex of mine couldn't be bothered to work so turned to mlms to get rich quick. I wasn't allowed to point out that mlms are scams, as that wasn't "thinking positively". Really though, it wasn't about positivity vs negativity at all. He just didn't want to face facts (in this case the fact that one usually has to work for money).

[1300cakes]

Everything is considered from worst possible scenario perspective.

Is an elderly, financially stable women finally getting to retire, or a visit from a guest being cancelled (but everyone is healthy etc and she can just visit another time), really the "worst case scenario"? It's negative thinking to say it is. OPs attitude - "yep those things might happen, so what" is much more positive.

[Seelow]

To be honest I think you are just making conversation about his mother and being realistic on the holiday. When I used to talk to my ex about things, he would be the other end of the spectrum.

If I suggested we need to start saving for our retirement, his answer would be - We will win the lottery.

[ATomeOfOnesOwn]

@Devlesko I don't know when you sold your's. DH has bought and resold quite a bit since lockdown started and not only has it retained its value but its sold very quickly too.

[AllIMissNowIsTheSea]

The OP sounds pragmatic and her DH sounds like a blind, unthinking style of fatalistic optimist.

Pessimism isn't in itself a bad thing anyway. The power of positive thinking movement is mostly pop psychology based on fairly wooley research exclude other mitigating or complicating potentially causative factors, such as health,or identify. At most a correlation between positive thinking and positive outcome is sometimes shown, but not causality.

The one size fits all determination that everyone must be positive and keep negativity or even pragmatism to themselves is so controlling and bullying, as another poster has said, and positions the "positive" person's fragile mood as always the most important factor in any and every conversation.

People able to face up to the negatives and prepare themselves may well be best prepared for reality. The relentlessly positive need constant proping up and affirmation of their fairytale version of reality. Perhaps the pessimists and pragmatists are constantly covering up the uncomforatble things which might pop the fragile bubbles of the blindly positive.

Work by Wellesley College psychologist Julie Norem and her colleagues shows that depriving defensive pessimists of their preferred coping style—for example, by forcing them to “cheer up”—leads them to perform worse on tasks.

Moreover, in a 2001 study of elderly community participants, Seligman and Brandeis University psychologist Derek Isaacowitz found that pessimists were less prone to depression than were optimists after experiencing negative life events, such as the death of a friend. The pessimists had likely spent more time bracing themselves mentally for unpleasant possibilities.

source www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-positive-thinking-be-negative/

[Tigger001]

I think some people can get realistic confused with negativity if the realistic outcome is one they dont like.


I think being realistic saves everyone time and effort, i can't listen to people who think they are being positive by providing unrealistic outcomes for situations, it just adds to the frustrations of an already difficult situation.

[Viviennemary]

I am very negative but it's a fault I have learned to live with. Sometimes I get called up on it. I think it was fair of you to say the holiday wouldn't happen. But I see how he might have taken exception to you saying his mother would most likely be made redundant. He's probably hoping for the best.

[Orangeblossom78]

openly

[blackcat86]

So does he actually get to the point of finally admitting something needs doing and doing it or does he criticise and then still leave you to contact the accommodation about a refund for example? Otherwise it sounds like a way of just avoiding adult responsibility and gas lighting you in the process. It's all well and good people criticising you for being negative and how draining it is but I find it horribly draining to be around fake positivity all the time and have to try and be chirpy without being able to raise anything real. PIL are awful for this and as they help with babysitting I may pass along some important medical info about toddler DD. Sometimes its simply, she's got a cold, sometimes it's a more serious medical appointment. They wont even let me finish before telling me that the medical concern is nothing, she doesn't have xyz, or that her cold is just the weather/teething, as if they literally cant compute anything negative. They actually lie about her walking rather than acknowledge a developmental delay. It's a bit unhinged IMO and quite immature because it leaves all the 'sorting out' and adulting to someone else whilst preventing any 'real' relationships where you support each other through difficult times.

[Orangeblossom78]

Yes, because what it means if you are brought up with this, is you can't discuss things opening, you have to keep it all to yourself. I understand, my mum was a bit like it too. It is a relief to know others such as a friend where you don't have to constantly veer to things which will not upset anyone or they can't cope with.

That is exhausting

[Suadow]

No Dixie you’re not being unreasonable.... if you don’t agree with his point of view, you get called negative ? I call it being unrealistic.... being a Pollyanna in the real world, the adult world is just being delusional...

[WinnieWonder]

@Orangeblossom78, yes, because it's not resilience, it's not emotional maturity! This absolute insistence that everybody must look ON THE BRIGHT SIDE.... wHY? because they can't cope with the opposite? Maybe the people they're busy labelling negative believe they can, if they have to, cope with negative outcomes.
My mother raised me like this and it had a horrible effect on me. Robbed me of the chance to have a normal adult relationship as well. Only unravelling it all now. It is a toxic way to carry on.

[WinnieWonder]

He sounds like my Mother. She forced a fake positivity on me. I feel completely invalidated and a bit gaslighted around her.

[MrsKoala]

This thread is really eye opening. Why should someone’s right to optimism trump someone’s right to air their concerns and get security from planning and anticipating negative effects of uncontrollable events? It’s so dismissive. Perhaps those being deemed negative may get support from talking about things and are being told not to mention it because the optimistic persons feelings are more important.

Of course there’s a line and if you are going on and on repeatedly saying the same thing then you should stop but not being able to mention it at all seems strange, controlling and restrictive.

A lot of the extreme optimists I have known who refuse to listen to any negativity have been people incapable of dealing with reality, living in denial and crippled by inaction. To accept anything other than a happy outcome would mean having to deal with it and prepare and that is intolerable to some.