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?

[AllIMissNowIsTheSea]

PlanDeRaccordement
People who are always negative about everything are very draining to be around. It means the other person has to reassure them and try and comfort them into a more positive frame of mind.

That's projection. You're talking about wo is me, permanent victim types or totally differently people who actually have depression and can't see any positives.

The OP wants to proactively take steps to minimise negative impacts of unwanted outcomes which look very likely to happen - that is pragmatism. She most certainly doesn't sound like a passive victim wanting to be cheered up, as you describe!

Her DH sounds like a Polyanna who wants to pretend nothing bad will ever happen - he's the one who sounds as though he'll need comfort and reasurance when his lack of forsight and contingency planning and unrealistic determination that nothing bad will ever happen to him or his loved ones, and it's fine to spend money like it's going out of fashion on things he doesn't need and already has duplicates of, turns out to have made things worse!

[AllIMissNowIsTheSea]

woe not wo

[Senoritaono]

YANBU - he's just shutting perfectly reasonable adult conversation down! Your examples do not suggest you are negative at all! The accommodation... I can't see how he can't see that you were being realistic and planning for a very likely outcome . What's the alternative - bury you head in the sand. Some people can't be bothered with other people's thoughts/ worries etc. Doesn't make you too negative because you dare voice some reasonable and possibly realistic possibilities...

[Orangeblossom78]

My DH's family are all like this - the weird positivity thing- but for them it is like they can't cope with any thing realistic (viewed as negative) they are also very emotional / mood swings and underneath quite neurotic

for some people it is like it triggers something and they can't cope with reality at times, it can feel like treading on eggshells in case you say something wrong

also lots of topics off discussion. in fact there was another poster saying something similar the other day about not being able to say anything but 'fine' to her DHs family

[Jux]

Sometimes it's necessary to look at worst case scenario, and I think that's all you're doing. I wonder if you could something which apparently agrees with him first like "mmm yes, that would be good, wouldn't it? OTOH, I wonder ........".

[AllIMissNowIsTheSea]

A blind, head in the sand, optimist/ fatalist trying to "reassure and comfort" a pragmatist who wants to get on with damage limitation and coax them into "a more positive frame of mind" would be absolutely infuriating!

The two personality types certainly wouldn't make for a compatible marriage!

[AllIMissNowIsTheSea]

Being positive is now viewed as morally correct.

It's the new stiff upper lip.

It ignores how complex life and people are in realitiy and the fact that bad stuff does happen and we have to plan to limit damage and accept that some things are negative and unwanted and bad, in order to move on from them.

It's easier to shove anything negative or complicated under the carpet and pretend it doesn't exist, and blame anyone wanting to deal with reality for being negative, but it isn't sustainable and has lots of consequences.

[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.

[WinnieWonder]

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

[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.

[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...

[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

[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]

openly

[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.

[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.

[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/

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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).

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.