Why does negativity affect me (us)?

[square]

I've been following the thread about moms venting and dumping negativity on their children. My source is my husband.

I don't mind certain levels of complaining. If something specific happened at work, I'm fine hearing about it and being a sympathetic ear.

But when it leaves the specific and starts turning into rants about how ALL people are evil (he does allow that maybe 5% aren't), or how he just wants to die, or surmising general motives of the population at large, or how he has clearly been cursed, and everything is out to get him - I really have a hard time taking this.

He does not understand at all. It baffles him. "I'm not taling about you, so why do you care?" I don't know the answer to this, but I'm similarly baffled that it would have to be about me to care?

I don't know what bothers me but - it's like, I'm trying to live my life and get through my own day, and his toxic negativity just adds to my burden somehow.

I'm naturally optimistic, but when bad things happen, I cope by setting it in my mind a way I can live with. "Deluding yourself" is what H calls it, but he does the same thing, just a different way.

He copes by ensuring everything is always someone else's fault, preferably with conscious malicious intent. That's how he can sleep at night. For me, that feels absolutely toxic.

What about you, does someone else's negativity affect you, and if so, how/why?

[jennfr]

You are absolutely correct, negativity is corrosive.  Regardless if the blame is toward you or someone else, it doesn't matter. 

Sure there are times and levels.  Bad things do happen, and being inappropriately over-positive can be grating. 

But it does not matter whether it is whining or yelling or anywhere in-between, it brings you down.

Think about it.  I remember a few "pep rallies" back in high school.  The only purpose was to get together and yell and cheer.  There was nothing different in the world or in our school.  But, Oddly, that lifted all our spirits.  Including mine!  (I was quite depressed at that time, so found it very surprising.)

Likewise it is a known fact that reading/viewing/watching too much bad news, regardless whether it's the other side of world and doesn't affect you, brings people Down.

Negativity does not have to be "talking about you" to bring you down.  It is someone dumping all their own muck on you.  Sure, someone can share a little muck, and you can help with the task of cleaning the day's muck off each other.   Doing that, can lift you both up.  BUT when someone is keeps dumping muck and more muck -- well it is not helping either of you.  "Venting" might feel good at the moment, but it often just makes things worse, and reinforces the negative emotions, and increases them in everyone around them. 

My own self I have found over the years I must guard myself VERY CAREFULLY from other people's negativity.  Like a drowning person, if they won't Let you Lift them, they will instead grab onto you and pull you down with them.  And, you will not drown in clean cleansing water, but in a ton of muck.

[Hepatica]

I think it's especially bad when it's chronic. I mean, everybody has a bad day, or if someone is grieving we surely have sympathy that they are not their best self for a year or two, but if they are always like that and they don't seek help, I think it is corrosive.

Try checking in with your body. When your husband says something like, he wants to die, that would affect your central nervous system. Security is very important to a balanced system. When someone says they want to die, don't you just feel your blood run cold, or you lurch and react. That all happens in your nervous system and if things like that are thrown at us regularly they can take a toll on our body and mindset.

It sounds like you've had enough of it. And for good reason. It is his job to find a way to accept that this world is imperfect, but it is worth living in. He has to work on his mindset, because rash comments like he is making will affect people who are close to him and depend on him. He needs to step up and respect that he hurts you when he says those things.

I've said things like this in the past too. And I did not know how to work with my feelings of despair, but I have sought counselling and want to change. I have been finding much more joy lately than ever. But I do have to work on it, and practically speaking part of that is shutting off the news and getting off Facebook and other social media platforms that are leaking toxicity like crazy. All the small stressors add up and I can feel terribly desolate. I have to try hard to surround myself in peaceful things. I own that now.

He should too.

I'm educating myself about a regulating the nervous system. This subject is big in healing right now, and it is helping me understand how someone else's negativity, and, yes, even my own, can disrupt over all physical health. It's not all in the head. It's in the body as well.

[pianissimo]

I think that it depends how the person is being negative. If they are being vulnerable while they are complaining about something in their life, or there is something sincere there, I don't mind. If negativity is the person's way to interact with the world, then, it bugs me. This is also because, when people share something negative in their life in a sincere way, they open up space for you to share too, but, when they do it to cope, I feel like I become invisible. The final thing is, normally, stressed or sad people find comfort in others' presence, but people who like complaining don't notice you are there for them.

[wisingup]

What about you, does someone else's negativity affect you, and if so, how/why

This is a good question Square, because in theory we could just let it roll off us.  But that doesn't really seem to be possible in reality.  Here are my thoughts on your question, coming from my experience with my mom.

I think she has some goals in mind with the negativity.  At any time, she may be trying to accomplish any one or more of the following:
- trying to get me to solve an issue that she doesn't want to deal with
- wanting me to get upset about something along with her, to validate her feelings & be "on her side"
- to make herself feel better by putting someone else down
- to get attention and sympathy

All of those require me to either go along with her manipulation of my emotions and take on her stuff OR actively resist, both of which are exhausting.  It's a lose-lose from my point of view. 

Now if you add in the extra stress of someone that you depend on (as I did with her when I was a child, and as you do now with your partner) letting you know that you CANNOT depend on them without paying an emotional price for it - it's kind of terrifying.  You're not only alone with your own stuff, but you have to deal with their stuff as well. 

[square]

jennfr, very true points. I can be lifted or lowered by shared experience - a great concert, laughter, or anger or negativity. And true, toxic positivity is also very bad.

Hepatica, yes, the chrinicness or imbalance is really key. I'm not unable to hsndle a bad day or even a bad period of time. But when it's not balanced with positivity, it just weighs one down. I also cannot get emotional support back. If I am down, he will rarely soothe me. And the thing is, even on those rare occasions, I can't really lean my weight on him, it's just a little bit. I could never really show my true feelings - to anybody, really. (They do come out somewhat here, I'm afraid).

pianissimo, that is very interesting. You've touched upon one part of the imbalance. It's not two people connecting and sharing and leaning and growing. It's one person dumping on another. Period. The dumper isn't seeking a connection with the dumpee.

When I wish I could lean on H, I don't picture it as just me unloading my poison. But sharing my deep fears and then maybe him admitting he's felt similar, or he has a good feeling it'll work out, or he has an idea, or maybe he can't really help but he'll be there for me as I go through it. A connection. Like I'm not alone.

Maybe he wants that from me too... but I dunno. The way he sees things are unfixible. My being there for him doesn't mean anything in a cruel world. My hunch it'll work out feels invalidating to him, my ideas are useless because the problem is the world is evil and my ideas don't change that. So no connection possible. And no end to his feeling, no hug and "I do feel better, thanks fir hearing me out."

Since my mom has entered the elderly years, she takes her overwhelm to me - but it's far outbalanced by positivity and interest in me and DD. And she ALWAYS thanks me and tells me she feels so much better, after I've helped her come up with a plan. It's just so different.

Wisingup, I love that brainstormed list. What really stands out for me on that list, thinking of H, is that he wants validation of his feelings.

I am generally very validating, and that's one of the key reasons he was drawn to me. His mother was/is very invalidating. I think as a result, his feelings get overwhelming because his mental parent says NO YOU'RE WRONG and he has to fight against it. So normal feelings of irritation explode instantly into fury with the psychological invaidation programmed into his brain

Problem is, I have a great amount of trouble validating "the world is an evil place." I acknowledge there is a great deal of evil in the world, but his view is that it's pretty much all evil, and any beauty is always stomped out. The world is basically post apocolyptic ashes. And I can't get behind that. I don't try to talk him out of it, but saying "yes honey, that man at the store was obviously just trying to ruin your life and most likely plotted it since he woke up this morning, not even knowing you," well, I just can't do it. We've been stuck on this issue our whole marriage and he says I'm the most unempathetic person in the world. Which is so ridiculous I can't even internalize that particular piece of garbage.

[square]

Wisingup, thinking more on your post, that's a really good point I'd never considered. It's not merely the negativity alone that is exhausting. It's the strings that come along with it.

I'm not even aware of all the pieces of the machinery going on, but when H dumps a liad of negativity on me, there are expectations, and there is also the fear or knowledge that I will have to pay if I can't keep him happy.

And one aspect is that I am required todeny my values and my view of th ex world to keep him happy, or I will pay the price - such as being accused of being one of the evil people and thus proof of his worldview.

I feel a lot of pressure to contort into his mindset. I've always drawn the line here, though. I've simply never been willing to go along with him on this, even pre Out of the FOG.

And so I feel a lot of stress not merely bevause of the negativity, but because I know from experience it WILL be unleashed on me. I will never satisfy him here.

And yet he keeps bringing it to me and keeps exacting the price from me.

[Poison Ivy]

Everybody feels negative sometimes. That's normal. Not everybody expects other people to "keep them happy." IMO, the latter is the problem in your situation, square. Your husband lacks emotional maturity.

[wisingup]

It's not merely the negativity alone that is exhausting. It's the strings that come along with it.

Yes, even if I stay silent and gray rock & try to let it roll off me, my silence is taken as agreement with her views.  I do NOT agree with or condone most of what she says and it stresses me to have it assumed that I do.  It costs me in a different way to speak up and argue.  Again - lose/lose.  The only way to win is not to play, which means not interacting at all, and that is not always possible.

[Lauren17]

Square, there are ways to validate H without agreeing with him. I've been attempting to do this with stbxh, based on advice from my T. Some examples.
I can see that you feel strongly about this.
This sounds like it was really frustrating for you.
I can understand how that would make you angry.
You're not disagreeing with him, which might make him double down on efforts to persuade you. You're not agreeing with his opinion, either. But you are validating his feelings.
The other thing I do against constant negativity is to get out my invisible, magical soap bubble bottle and blow a huge bubble around myself. Anger and negativity can't get through to me. Do I know this is ridiculous? Yes. Does it work? Also yes.

I don't know about anyone else, but I could use a good pep rally right now. 

[Boat Babe]

In answer to the question of your title, I think that negativity affects everybody.  Empathy and mirror neurons and deep wired sociability.

I think it affects us more because A) we get so much of it and B) as a result of A, we are finely attuned to it, driven to distraction by it and it pushes all our buttons.
.  . It's toxic.

[Hepatica]

Think about when we're around someone who is happy go lucky and fun loving, how that can be infectious.

I think the same happens when we around someone negative - we get slightly infected by it too. It's hard to go against that sometimes, even if you're superhuman positive.