5 Reasons Why Giving Ultimatums In A Relationship Just Doesn’t Work
The most difficult thing to do sometimes is to step into someone else’s shoes and see things from their perspective. If that was easy, Arnab Goswami would have been unemployed by now and the world would be a much happier place. We exist in our own bubbles carrying our own perceptions and needs, considering them the most precious of all. Add to that the habit of being completely autonomous, and our relationships go for a toss with none of us being able to compromise.
When we enter a relationship, we treat it like a magic lamp and we expect that all our needs, desires, and demands will be fulfilled. But our partners are as autonomous as us; they are not our personal genies. And when they don’t see things the way we do and they don’t see love as we do, we get mad. We feel frustrated and put our foot down and give them an ultimatum. Either give us what we want or we walk away. It can be anything – taking things to the next level or making alterations in your relationship. Here’s why giving a relationship ultimatum will never work.
1) Your partner can feel threatened
How would you feel if your boss gave you an ultimatum? Finish the report by tomorrow morning or be fired. The pressure will threaten your job security and it will make you resent your boss with a passion. Maybe you will finish the report anyway, but not wholeheartedly. You’re not even the boss of him so making your partner feel that way is not going to do the relationship any good.
2) It closes down communication
No matter how frustrated you feel about a certain disagreement, relationships never work on the ‘my way or high way’ ideology. I know sometimes you feel like it would be so much better if they just did what you want them to but human connections don’t work that way. When you give your partner an ultimatum, you lose the scope of finding a middle ground, without which there is really no difference between a relationship and dictatorship.
3) It can cause a premature breakup
Change doesn’t happen overnight and definitely not with an ultimatum. And if the ultimatum is about commitment, the bonding too doesn’t happen overnight. Things take time to mature and if you cut its time short, all you’re gonna get is a premature breakup.
4) If you end up staying, you won’t be taken seriously in the future
Give an ultimatum only if you’re ready to leave if you don’t get what you want. We assume that the final warning will give us the desired results and just use it as a tool to manipulate them into it. But what if it doesn’t? Are you ready to leave? If you stay, your word will not have any value and nobody is going to take your ultimatums seriously.
ALSO READ: 10 Things You Will Relate To If Your Boyfriend Is Not As Romantic As You
5) Your relationship is already dysfunctional
The fact that you’ve reached a point where you’re tempted to give an ultimatum proves that a) your patience has dropped to zero and b) your needs are not being met. So this is a time when you reflect on your relationship, individually and together. Understand whether you can reach a middle ground or you think this is not what you want. Communicate and mutually come up with a solution.
