“My partner doesn’t care about my interests?They get defensive, shut down, and snub me?” Here’s why and what to do.

Aren’t you kind of annoyed when your partner shows no interest in the things that YOU’RE interested in?

Especially the things that involve mental and spiritual growth, the things that change you as a person?

After all, you show interest in THEIR hobbies, activities, and what they’re reading or working on.

You make a real effort to stay up to date with them on things, ask questions, and be engaged.

But when it comes to you - they snub your interests.

If you try to share about a personal development book you read, or the retreat you want to go on, for example, they don't really respond, or engage, or even worse, they get defensive and seem to perceive it as an attack.

Which is baffling to you, because surely your growth should be something that they care about?

Now to be clear: I’m not talking about differences in hobbies which are quite normal in relationships - it’s unrealistic to expect you BOTH to enjoy the exact same things. And it’s quite healthy to have your own separate identities. My husband loves video games, for example, and I personally am a fiend for subconscious mind work. But we come together when it’s about personal growth.

I mean when you find yourself pursuing projects and activities, like working on yourself, your inner growth, your spirituality, your emotional wellbeing, and your partner seems really quite disinterested.

In fact, they become quite rude about it.

It’s almost like they're not participating in who you’re becoming.

Well, let me ask you this then:

When was the last time you actively invited them into your world and shared with them WHY these things are important to you?

I.e. WHY it’s important to you to explore and unpack your inner world, your emotional landscape?

WHAT you get from it?

HOW you like to do it?

Because in my experience, in many cases, it’s not that your partner doesn’t care - it's that they’re threatened by the prospect of you growing and them getting left behind.

Oftentimes, if you’re the one who is more career-driven, more ‘intellectual’, more outgoing - and your partner is the one that’s more introverted, stuck at home, or less driven than you are, your own personal escapades in the world of personal development and growth can seem quite frightening to them.

They might worry that they’re going to lose you.

Or that you’ll abandon them, by outgrowing them.

They might think that you’re going to see them as somehow less than, or that you’ll become ‘better’ than them.

There are lots of deep psychological reasons why your partner might feel scared by your personal growth - and thus, because they’re scared, start to shut down.

And when they shut down, guess what?

They become defensive.

They show disinterest.

They start to snub you.

That’s not them NOT caring or somehow being a bad partner - that’s them being scared and acting out in a childlike, albeit unhelpful way.

So the solution for you lies not in shutting down yourself and vowing to not talk about these things with them - that’s just going to make you both grow apart even further.

Nor is it in shrinking your growth.

But in actually sharing the ‘WHY’ with them and getting even more deep and vulnerable with them on the ins and outs of what you’re doing and the motivation behind it.

The more transparency and vulnerability that you can bring to them, the more you can shed light on how this growth ties into your backstory as a child, who you are, what it means to you, and what it means for your relationship, the more included they’re going to feel.

The less ominous and scary it’ll be.

And by sharing more, you invite them more into your world, so they start to feel like they belong more.

And belonging is all that we ever really want in life, truthfully. We get into relationships and we fall in love, because we feel like we belong with our partner. So cultivating this feels like a very important thing to do indeed.

So, really, it’s not surprising that when you DON’T bring your partner into your world in this more granular, nitty gritty level of detail and depth, they feel excluded and unsure about what you’re sharing - and want to shut down, out of fear and defensiveness, right?

Now, if you’re thinking: “well how the heck do i do this - I thought I was already doing this”...

It’s likely you’re missing a few crucial communication cues and practices that we all need to master if we want to communicate with true depth and vulnerability, and create true intimacy.

It’s not as simple as ‘I’m going to sit down and say, Hey let me tell you about my ayahuasca experience and why it’s so important to me’. ;)

It’s not THAT simple.

If it was, we wouldn’t have such insane divorce rates.

Communicating and relating to your partner is an art that we need to master if we want to be happy in love - and one that you can master too!

And no, going to ask ChatGPT won’t help you here, because when has reading about something (especially something created by AI) been sufficient to change your behaviors? It’s not.

You need to embody the changes, and also shift any of the resistance and blocks you might have internally to doing this - and to being truly vulnerable.

Which isn’t a bad thing - it’s a GOOD thing - since this sort of deeper inner work is precisely what makes you happier within yourself and gives you more freedom overall in life.

So it’s a win win!

It’s also what I specialize in with clients - identifying their inner blocks towards intimacy, shifting those at a root cause level, and creating healthy strategies to get their needs met. Which includes talking to their partner and relating in a more intimate and empowered way.

If you want my support with this, I’d love to help you.

If this feels familiar, we should talk - and I’ll share more about my methodology.

You absolutely CAN feel connected to your partner and united in your growth, your journey together, and like you’re onto an incredible adventure in this second half of your life.