[00:00:00]   It is strange how quickly joy can turn into hurt in a relationship. One minute you’re proud, relieved. Excited. The next minute you are wondering why your partner doesn’t even seem happy or why they’re not happy for you. Today I am answering a question. I just got a promotion and my partner isn’t happy for me.

I see this come up a lot in relationships. You share some news or a something to be celebrated, a promotion, something you’ve worked really hard for, and instead of a celebration, your partner’s response feels flat. Or disconnected, and you’re left thinking, what is going on here?

I am going to walk you through three common reasons this happens, and the last one is one that I see most often in my work with couples. I’ll share some ways you can respond to help turn these difficult conversations into something a little more productive and useful.

And this is a small piece of what I cover in my New Year relationship Reset workshop. I am deep in creating that, and if you’re listening to this [00:01:00] as it airs, you can join me live on the 28th of Jan. And if. You’ve missed a live workshop ’cause you’re listening to this at another time that suits you.

That’s okay. It will be available on demand. Where I help couples understand things like this, like what success means to each other, how they celebrate wins, how money and goals shape our reactions and what gets created between two people in those moments. But for now, let’s slow this down one moment at a time.

But for now, let’s slow this one moment down and take a look at what really happening underneath.

This is just a small part of the work that I do in my New Year relationship reset course, and if you’re listening this at another time and it’s not the new year, that’s okay.

It’s available on demand. Check it out. I’m going to walk you through seven key conversations that you can have with your partner to help you understand a whole bunch of stuff about them from their relationship with money, their goals for the year, how you like to feel connected, what you want to celebrate,

Sarah. She got promoted to assistant principal and she’s so excited. This is her dream. [00:02:00] She has loved working with kids and loved education, and this promotion is her dream come true. It is an opportunity to impact the school on a wider scale and really help the young people that she is so passionate about.

And she comes home and she shares this news with her partner. Let’s call him Mark. And Mark’s like, cool, babe, well done. Kind of flat, kind of, you know, indifferent. And she was. Devastated. Now in her family, they celebrated wins when she was in school and she was in recitals and in theater. Her family was there on opening night with flowers and they kept all of the, you know, those little books that you get to show, you know who the cast is and the little flyer, they kept all of that.

They were so. Proud on graduation. Everyone was there and they celebrated when she got her first job. People were sending her messages and her parents wrote her a card. They have a culture in their family of celebrating wins, of celebrating milestones. So for her [00:03:00] to work hard and be diligent and dedicated and apply for this job, and prepare for the interview and to finally get it, and her partner.

Not really show her the appreciation or the validation or celebrate that in a way that she was used to, that she thought was normal, that that’s what you do for someone felt devastating. And so for her, celebration equals love, and that’s what she got used to. But for Mark, that wasn’t the case. He grew up in a family where.

You just kept working, you kept going. He had migrant parents who didn’t wanna toot their own ho horn. They head down, bum up. They just worked, worked, worked, worked, worked. And so he never got celebrated, didn’t occur to him to celebrate.

So Sarah’s interpreting his response as lack of care.

And for him it’s could be a number of different things. Celebration was not role modeled in his family. Achievements were acknowledged. Quietly or privately

well done. Felt genuinely enough for [00:04:00] him. And then there’s confusion about why she’s upset. You can see how this might spark a fight. She’s come home, she’s shared this news, and he’s like, well done babe. And then she’s goes quiet. I don’t know what’s wrong. Why aren’t you happy for me? You don’t care about nothing I do is good enough for you.

You don’t know how hard I’ve worked. And he is there like genuinely perplexed and confused and has no idea what happened. My take on this is that neither of them are wrong. They don’t know this about each other. They have brought in their own assumptions into this conversation about what was useful or normal for them growing up or what they would’ve liked and interpret the other person’s behavior from that lens.

From that template, they have different emotional languages. One person is seeking shared joy. Sarah wants to celebrate, and she’s excited. And the other person’s offering recognition in their own way. Both sides make sense. Her disappointment makes sense, and his confusion makes sense.

There’s no. Bad thing happening here, and it would feel devastating. I know if I was Sarah and I was sharing some news, I [00:05:00] would be shattered. I would be so upset, and that’s something then that I was so proud of and worked so hard for not getting acknowledged, would feel devastating. Let’s say there is option two.

There is another way that this could have worked. Now, I don’t know exactly what happened in this story. I just am answering the question as I’ve got it. So I’ve tried to make up a few examples that highlight the kinds of dynamics and the patterns that I see. So let’s say in this situation, mark and Sarah, again, I’m gonna use the same couple,

it’s about the financial security. So for Sarah, this job means. A pay bump, a ongoing contract or a con, a decent contract. So she’s got the position for five or six years or whatever it is. And it’s financial independence. She comes from a family where her mom really struggled to have any sort of financial independence.

She wasn’t educated. She worked in jobs that had a lot of turnover, and she was always in and out of employment. So for Sarah to work hard at uni to become a teacher, to work her way up through the different levels of leadership and become an assistant principal, not only was it a job [00:06:00] that she loved and cared deeply about.

It offered financial security, and so she felt so accomplished and so proud.

So for Mark not to acknowledge this, not to understand what it means for her, what that relief is like, feels like hurt. It feels hurtful. It feels. Maybe she feels deflated when this is minimised or dejected, perhaps. And let’s say for Mark, he grew up in a culture where you’re supposed to take care of your partner. You’re supposed to be the man of the house, and he has a belief that he should. Be able to support his partner. So to see her stress herself out, to see his partner, stress out about a job and wanting security feels a little bit shameful to him.

Like he’s not providing enough or she doesn’t trust him or doesn’t have faith in him, and he starts having all of these thoughts, a bit of shame emerges. So when she says, I got the promotion, isn’t this amazing? Now we can breathe financially. I’m so excited. I love this job. And it also has, you know, pay [00:07:00] bump.

He feels a little small. There’s fear of imbalance, maybe a bit of comparison. He’s feeling insufficient.

1. And inadequate, and maybe there’s a bit of a fear of changing roles of what that means. If he’s no longer the primary earner, what does that mean for his desirability as a partner? Does that mean she might not want him around or thinks he’s not doing enough or bringing enough to the table now? Now money is never just about money.

Money carries meaning. We all have a different belief about money and. I asked someone this once, like, oh, what’s your belief about money? They’re like, well, I don’t have a belief. It’s like you do. We all have beliefs about money. You might believe money is transactional. That money is to be spent, that money’s to be saved, that it can, it’s just ongoing and you spend it, you get it, you earn it.

It comes through. We all have beliefs about money, and I talk about this in an entire module in my relationship reset course, there’ll be a link in the show notes if you wanna check that out where I talk [00:08:00] about this. Because money is a huge source of fights for couples and it’s.

Actually never about the dollars and cents. It’s not the B, it’s not about the accounting of it, it’s what it represents. And this pattern of feeling inadequate and shame and, and having to be the provider. And then when we add children into the mix really throws couples. So if that’s a scenario that’s happening here for.

Mark and Sarah, no wonder that they’re fighting and what should be a celebration and, and a moment to acknowledge her hard work and maybe pop over ball of champagne. I don’t know what you like to do. I like to go out for dinner to celebrate a promotion. It turns into a fight instead, and then work feels the topic of work feels loaded.

And instead of getting, you know, the warm and fuzzies, it becomes tense. And that’s not nice for anybody. Promotions can activate beliefs, they can be old beliefs, they can be ones that you were never confronted with before. And so in this case, mark and Sarah would really need to talk about what’s going on for them.

His pride is valid and it’s re, and it’s taking away from her [00:09:00] joy.

His discomfort might be getting in the way of him actually celebrating her win. And he will need some support to tolerate that enough to be there for her to celebrate that win. And she will also benefit from talking to him, and the couple will benefit from having a conversation about what was evoked for you.

What was this really about? I tried to share this exciting thing with you, and I noticed that you didn’t seem as happy and you withdrew. Being able to talk about it rather than making assumptions, rather than saying, you don’t care about me. You never do, blah, blah, blah. As soon as you start adding in the, you never, or you always, that person’s going to feel criticised and they’re going to flare up their defenses and it’s going to be their attack back or their stonewall, or they withdraw.

It’s going to activate that pattern again. So we wanna be curious and understand what’s happening underneath what’s beneath the service, and have a conversation about what does a promotion mean.

Let’s say third example, this is the last example, [00:10:00] is Mark has been feeling really disconnected lately. Sarah’s been putting in all these extra hours and he hasn’t known how to ask for connection. So that’s happening in the background. Sarah comes home and says, guess what? I got the promotion. I’m assistant principal.

And Mark’s like actually says, great, so more time at the school, and she loses it.

Instead of him being excited, he’s telling her off. She feels. Deflated. She’s like, what the hell is wrong with you? Why don’t you just understand that I’m excited about this? You make it all about you. And whew, they start fighting in his mind. Promotion equals longer hours at work. Past experiences of work taking over, start swirling through his mind maybe.

His parents worked long hours and they always justified it, but we are working to send you to a good school or we’re working hard for your future. Your dad’s at work so he missed your sports event. Your mom’s at work, so she couldn’t come and volunteer at the school canteen your dad’s at work, so he couldn’t come on that excursion, you know, whatever it was.

[00:11:00] Work, work, work, work, work. Got in the way of connection and he’s really sensitive to that. He is really worried about that. And he wants to be supportive and also wants to feel connected. He doesn’t wanna come second, he doesn’t wanna feel unimportant in someone’s life. So he’s coming to her news, her good news, her excited news with all of that baggage, and she’s seeing him as being maybe controlling or you don’t care about me, or you always make it about you.

And again, huge fight over seemingly nothing or good news that should be celebrated, turns into complete. Chaos.

This is about closeness, not control. It came out so wrong though. If someone’s saying, oh, but you never spend time for me, or, here we go again, you’re always gonna be at work. The other person’s going to get defensive. They’re going to feel criticised. And underneath that is a desire to be connected, a desire to feel important, and that got completely lost.

So my take is that he’s protecting himself by throwing out a little comment and then disengaging and not knowing. He doesn’t know how to ask for [00:12:00] reassurance, maybe fear of being blindsided. Her frustration is so understandable, and I see this example come up a lot in my therapy room, where someone shares something that they’re deeply proud of and deeply excited about, and their partner somehow feels threatened either by their perceived inadequacy, that if you’re achieving all these things, does that mean if I’m not achieving them?

You think less of me or I’m not good enough, or you’re going to fall in love with someone else who’s just as ambitious, or perhaps that means more time away from home. That means less connection. You’re going to be tired. And instead of having a conversation around it, it either gets swept under the rug or we get these little jabs and little, you know, snippet comments here and there that are passive aggressive.

And before you know it, this sort of tension builds and then we can pinpoint it back to some of these bigger lifestyle changes. And so when I mentioned earlier that money was an important thing. Understanding changing dynamics and upcoming [00:13:00] anticipated challenges or even unanticipated. Couples rarely have these conversations, and that’s part of why they end up on the couples therapy couch.

And so being able to talk about the year ahead and say, what happens if I get this promotion or over the next few years, I’m going to be doing X, Y, Z, or graduate from this course, or I want to go back to study. What will that look like? How do you like to be connected during that time? And actually come up with a plan that works for you with your needs, with the support that you need, and to be supportive to your partner because you can’t have everything all at once just with assumptions.

There’s no way of just knowing what your partner’s going to want and need. And it doesn’t mean that everything they share, they get, having the conversation is really important.

So how conflict escalate? Hmm. You can see how it happens really easily in some of these conversations, can’t you? An eye roll, A grunt. A less than enthusiastic. Well done, babe. Oh my goodness. That’s amazing. I mean, that’s the kind of reaction I would want. If we have all of [00:14:00] these unmet expectations and these ideas of what something should be like, it’s so easy for it to just escalate.

Criticism starts replacing quality communication replaces vulnerability. So instead of saying something like, I, I’m worried about what this might do, I’d like to spend more time together, it comes across as, you never wanna spend time with me, you find another reason to get out of the house. Again, not helpful.

Saying something like, well, you never celebrate me. Also shuts things down, and this takes nuance. It’s finding a way to translate what your partner’s saying and also trying to improve how you say it. In my experience, when I’m working with couples, both people fall into some of these patterns and get stuck.

It’s like a spider’s web. They kind of just get stuck in that trap and then they can’t get out. They get stuck and they go around in these cycles over and over and over again. So what to say instead,

if you’ve had a conversation like this and you are listening to me talk and you’re thinking, uhoh, I messed up. Ask for a redo. Be honest. Say I listened to a podcast, or I watched a [00:15:00] video, or I read this blog. However you come across the information and say, I realised I really got this wrong. You had a promotion and I didn’t, I don’t think I celebrated it the way you wanted, or.

We’ve never actually spoken about this. How do you like to celebrate your thing? So you could have a redo. You could say, I did not respond well when you told me X, Y, Z. Can I try that again? I have rarely seen that backfire. In fact, I haven’t actually seen that backfire. I’m just gonna say rarely as like a little asterisk.

So you know, it doesn’t mean it’s foolproof, I just haven’t seen it. But when someone genuinely says, I really F that up, can I, can I try that again? Can make such a big difference.

Naming feelings. Instead of attacking character. And so what this looks like is instead of saying you don’t care about me, it’s, I felt uncared for when I shared with you my promotion news and all you said was Well done, babe. The story I’m telling myself was that you didn’t really care. And so you can name the feeling, [00:16:00] you can share the example, and then adding in a bit about the story you’re making up, how you’re interpreting that, because it’s not fact, it’s interpretation,

so.

And slow the moment down if it’s happening, if it’s live, and this happens to you in the near future, and you can cast your mind back to these words that I’m saying is, okay, let’s just take a breath here. What’s this really about? Let’s slow down. Let’s go for a walk. Can we talk about it a bit more? Being able to slow it down as it’s happening.

So if you want a few questions to try with your partner, that can get ahead of some of these conversations. Here are some that I’d like you to try at home. How do you like to celebrate wins?

What feels like a win for you? How did your family handle achievements? How important is your career to you? What does success represent to you? How do you feel about changes in money or time between us? And if it’s an upcoming promotion or an event, then ask, does this bring up any worries about us and our relationship?

So hopefully that’s [00:17:00] given you a few tools that you can use at home where I’m really trying to get you. Get folks to understand that there’s what we bring into a relationship. There’s what our partner brings, and then there’s all the messy stuff that happens in the middle that we co-create together. And it’s really important to start to recognise the role we play in that.

And we can’t change someone else. We can’t fix someone else. We can change how we communicate and what we do different, and have some of these conversations. And if you want some help on how to have these conversations a little more productively, check out the link in the show notes. Where I, for my relationship reset course, where I go through seven key conversations that you can have and it’ll be available on demand.

You can do it multiple times. You’ll have the workbook to help you get ahead of some of these things.

So I wanna thank our listener for writing in. This is a really good juicy question, and if you’ve got another question that you want answered, get in touch. I would love to answer your questions.

And remember, we had different humans with different brains, different interpretations, and it’s important to give your partner the [00:18:00] benefit of the doubt. If you ask your partner one of these questions, I would love to hear from you. I’d love to hear how it went. If you needed any more support or any more prompts, reach out.

I always love to hear from you. Thanks for listening.