Ok, I have no idea why this bothers me and I don’t even know what to call it. My husband is a “come here” guy. Something he thinks is interesting and wants to show me - hey, come here! Nuclear apocalypse - hey, come here! Why the hell wont he just tell me why he wants me to get up, trudge to wherever he is, so that he can reveal the surprise like some sort of performative art ? I never know if it’s going to be legitimate, a disaster, or something stupid. The walk to wherever he is is insanely stressful because the whole time I’m running through all possible horrible scenarios (we’ve had a lot of issues at the house lately so I never know if I’m going to find water in the basement or raccoons in the attic or a hole in my foundation, or just him looking at a funny cat video). I’d rather he say “hey, babe, something is happening wherever/whatever, come see this.” Instead I have to have the whole performance and reveal and I fucking hate it. Anyone else know what I’m talking about or am I just mental ?
“Hey, [husband], it really bothers me when you just say come here, because it makes me feel X and Y. Can you not do this anymore please? Instead, if you want to show me something say something like Z.”
People are not mind readers. Talk to eachother.
Communication can solve SO many problems in relationships. It’s critical.
Because, unless it is an emergency, the “come here” person expects you to drop whatever you are doing and immediately switch your attention to what they are doing. If it is only “come here” then they provide, like you say, no information as to how important it is or if you even care about it. They may not intend it but it feels like a lack of respect that their time is more important than yours.
As someone who’s been dealing with OPs exact scenario with a family member for 20+ years, I can 100% say that this is the only correct answer.
What started 10 years ago with me asking nicely to drop that habit because it feels like a disrespect of my time, has over the years turned into major conflicts. I can get behind somebody calling me with a simple “come here” to get my attention, but as soon as I ask “what for?” and they go out of their way to make the reason a secret by repeating “just come here” over and over, it’s stops being a bad habit and quickly turns into straight up malice. Especially after being repeatedly told that it’s something that I value for them not to do.
I’ve adjusted my behavior far more for people that I like a lot less, just to adhere to their comfort. If a coworker asks me not to stack boxes too high because she has trouble reaching them, I will. Even though their respect or friendship means a lot less to me than a family members or friends, I will go through this minor trouble because it’s just common courtesy.
But for some reason, the request of giving one sentence of context for a call down two flights of stairs from a loved one, is impossible to fulfill.Since my situation has been going on for so long, I’ve naturally started looking into this behavioral issue and sought out other people experiences with similar things.
Simply put, it’s a form of narcissism.
I’ve started noticing other typical narcissistic patterns with that person too. Like for example on multiple occasions I’ve been busy with something else in another room and hear somebody dropping and breaking a plate, suddenly this person rushes to me and asks me why I made them drop the plate, because their brain is incapabile to recognize their own wrong doing. This isn’t even the most extreme example, just the most common one.In short, if this is something that has been going on for a long time and your requests have been ignored, that person has most likely a mental condition. This is not normal adult behavior. If you’re tethered to this person you can read up on how to deal with them or ask some experts. But just know, that getting them to change is fighting for a lost cause.
So I’m your husband and my wife is you. I can tell you the reason I do it is that it can be difficult for me to necessarily formulate exactly what I want to say about what I want to show you. I want to share whatever experience it is, but trying to explain exactly why stresses me out.
On the flip side my wife will just tell me what she saw after the fact and I’m left there thinking “…why didn’t you tell me to come look.”
My problem is with ADHD. Sometimes, I can explain perfectly.
Other times, the words are there, but the brain is processing too much; too fast. So ‘come here’ or ‘look at this’ is the best I can muster.
I know the words and phrases to describe it, but it’s clogged up. So my brain reverts to: Why many word?
Sounds like the only solution is to go slow the other person what your talking about, if able.
I sorry, in what world should
“Hey, come look, theres a funny picture I want to show you.”,
“I’m going to need your help in the garden for the next 2 hours.”,
“I think the sink is clogged, the water doesn’t go down.”
be communicated in the same way, by saying “come here”?Lacking communication skills are absolutely no excuse. If you can’t exite someone and still give them information then work on your delivery, watch some stand up or read novels, there are enough examples how to build tension with plain sight. Communication is the most important aspect in life, and you can’t improve yourself for your loved one, getoutahere.
you need to talk to your partner and go to counseling forthwith.
Not OP here, what do I do if this is my mother?
Then you should divorce immediately
Talk to your mother and go to counseling, or don’t talk to your mother and go to counseling
Depends roughly on how old you are. Take these age ranges with a grain of salt, but:
If you’re young, as in college age or younger, and still living under her roof, pick your battles but chances are excellent you’ll get up at least some of the time just to preserve the free or discounted rent situation.
If you’re between college age and retirement age, you’ll either work it out with her as a mostly-equal adult OR you’ll go fully passive-aggressive, sit-on-my-ass, you-come-to-me – until you move the fuck out. (Why are you still there, anyway? Setbacks are one thing, but if it looks like a forever thing, take a moment and reconsider your life choices.)
If you’re over retirement age, you’ll hop up like Almighty God herself was calling you, because now your mom is very old and very frail and very forgetful, and you REALLY don’t want to have the cops calling you because they just found her wandering around the intersection in front of the Walmart a couple miles down the road, so you hop off your ass NOW if you even think you hear her call out.
Sounds like you should take this up to him, and ask him yourself, having communication is really important, and remember, you could be doing something that also annoys him and he doesn’t say anything
I can relate. I’m a words person. If my wife tells me to come see something, I’m thinking “just fucking tell me.” If I click on a news link, and it’s a video instead of an article, it’s the same thing: “just fucking tell me.” But not everybody is a words person.
I fucking abhor how all information on the internet has become videos instead of text plus pictures. Very rarely does video add anything useful, and you can’t easily search it or quote it. It’s such a stupid way to share basic information 99% of the time.
And you can’t skim a video. It’s a waste of time.
it’s because it’s way easier to monetize
OMG, I’ll spend an hour looking for an article or a description of a fix for an issue, before I’ll watch a 10 minute video on it! Mostly because that video has about 9 minutes of complete bullshit before answering my question.
instead of letting contempt fester in you why not literally just say “im busy rn can it wait?” and then give your partner some fucking time later to share something with you they find interesting? you sound like a bitter person tbh. maybe just talk to them damn.
I have talked to him. He acknowledges he does it but doesn’t know why. I’ve explained how stressful it is for me, and he says he understands. I’m bitter because it annoys the fuck out of me, not because he’s trying to “share” with me.
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How about asking him to come to you instead each time? Or try to find some other way to help him break the habit. Don’t let yourself get too worked up about it.
“Come here” feels unnecessarily directive to me. Like you, I’d be annoyed too if someone tried demanding my presence like that. You’re not his to command.
My wife and I, if we want the other to see something, usually just say “Hey babe - check this out”, and the other feels comfortable saying “Hang on” if they’re doing something else. If it has some urgency, we’ll add context: “Hey babe - come see what this idiot’s doing in his car out the front”. If what we want to show is portable (eg. a video on our phone) then we go to them.
Next time, I’d just respond with “What is it?”.
That’s literally the same thing
Nah, not really, but I get that it’s hard to infer tone in a written post.
I’ve been told just today that tone isn’t hard to infer from text and people who use tone markers are dumb. /s
I have a similar issue with a co-worker that I trained under for a while: when he wanted to show me how to do a thing, he wouldn’t tell me what he was instructing me on, he would just start walking me through steps so that he could reveal what was finished at the end.
I ended up having a blow up where I told him to tell me what I was doing before I started doing it, and that he isn’t a fucking magician.
Editted to add: I started calling him Houdini for a while, which is what made him stop
tell him to stop issueing the command of “come here,” and instead offer up alternatives.
“Hey, you got a second to see this?”
“Honey, you gotta check this out!”
“Honey, drop everything you’re doing and run to me”
“Hey babe, come experience this crazy thing with me!”
it’s more to do with their inability to use words to describe what they are seeing. Lack of ability to communicate. And yes, it can be very exhausting. You just reminded me of one relationship I’m actually very very relieved it ended because he was very much a draining human being.
I think I get it, and maybe I’m wrong but it could be that you find it annoying because you don’t know how to set up boundaries.
Basically if someone tells me to come here without telling me what’s all about, and I don’t want to go all the way there- I don’t go. I just yell back at them, “what is it?” Until they tell me. If they don’t, I don’t go. If they insist, I can explain I’m either busy or don’t feel like moving my lazy arse for something I don’t know what is it about.
When I was growing up, my mom would do this all the time. My approach was mostly the same, she would shout, “Come here!” and I would request a reason. Most of the time she said she needed help and it would turn out to be nothing.
As I got older, I realized she was actually trying to connect with me because I was distancing myself. I don’t know if this is also what’s going on with OP and partner, and I won’t assume that’s the case. Sometimes people don’t know how to properly vocalize when they’re lonely and want to spend time with you.
This. Learn to set boundaries for something that stresses you out
Follow up question, have you had a discussion with him about this? Have you two attempted to approach and solve this problem as a team already?
I have a different nickname for my wife when I want her to come to me. So it’s just so easy I just have to shout and she’ll show up in a matter of seconds. But if call her by regular name, she’ll just reply asking. WHAAAT?
Also I think you’re bothered because “come here” is just so basic, feels like an order, we see ourselves as something being told to dogs. Just two more words can change the tone a lot “can you come here?”
I’m going to guess that it doesn’t occur to him that when someone demands your attention like that, you imagine the worst. It might help him to know that.
I’m like you in that regard. I got used to asking back “Is there a problem?” That seemed to help me feel less stress sooner.
Maybe the combination of these two things would help.
Good luck.
