Survive with a pessimist

How he ruins your (and himself) life

You are in a great mood, and you invite your partner to go somewhere together. He, without hesitation, replies: “It is unlikely that we will succeed.” The constant “no” in response to any of your initiatives is depressing: you understand that the horizons of your life are narrowing. The apartment that you dreamed of renting is sailing away at the very last moment. Your pessimistic partner is as upset as you are, because pessimism does not protect against disappointment. “I told you it wouldn’t work,” he says with a sad half smile.

It may even seem that he unconsciously rejoices in your general bad luck. Involuntarily, you begin to adopt his implicit taste for misfortune – a kind of silent masochism. A lot of irritation is mixed in with your disappointment …

Learn to understand

It is important to know that a pessimist thinks “on the contrary”: successes seem to him accidental, and defeats seem natural. Often pessimism is a manifestation of one of the forms of anxiety. The feeling of uncertainty and the expectation of possible failure become part of the way a person thinks. “A thoughtless pessimist feels like an eternal sufferer,” says Gestalt therapist Alexei Smirnov. – He constantly thinks that others are doing something wrong. He blames others for failures, considering himself a victim of circumstances and people. In a sense, such a person is really a victim, because he is not an active participant in the events of his life and does not feel responsible for what happens to him.

Know how to respond correctly

Don’t let yourself get infected

Your partner criticizes you for being naive and not being able to perceive the world, like him, in a “real” negative color. Tell yourself clearly: he is wrong. Remind him that not always his pessimistic forecasts came true. Fortunately, over time, those close to pessimists tend to stop listening to their catastrophic predictions.

Encourage him to look for solutions

Anticipate your pessimistic partner’s attempts to act in his usual negative logic. Ask him to search and suggest possible options for action, instead of listing obstacles to achieving the goal.

look for roots

If he is convinced that failure is an inseparable part of his personality, then he is not confident in himself. Perhaps once he had a hard time experiencing feelings of separation, abandonment, this experience made him doubt his own worth. His pessimism has a reason – try to find it.

Ask yourself what you win

We meet by chance, but he does not control our decision to join our fate with the fate of another person. Living with a pessimist gives us the opportunity to fulfill our need to constantly help another, but at the same time gain power over him. This choice of partner may also be dictated by an unconscious desire to hide your own anxiety: you have found a more difficult case than your own, isn’t that reassuring?