He's Faking It (If You're Doing This)

Imagine you are playing on a tennis court. 

You’re on one end, he’s on the other. You’re lobbing the ball back and forth. Now, if you're playing with fairly well-matched skill and enthusiasm for the game, you’re going to have a great set. Sometimes one of you will lose one, or the ball will land out, and that’s okay. You run after it, you lob it back. No big deal, right? 

But what if you're running all over your end of the tennis court, and he's just sitting cross-legged in one corner

What if every time you hit your ball over there, he just pops it back and it makes you run. What if he doesn’t even send it out of his court and you have to leave your side to fetch it back? What if he never gets up and plays his end of the court? 

He’s just lobbing it back in your general direction from his sitting spot. 

You chase the ball... and chase the ball… and chase the ball… and you wonder why you’re tired? That’s because he’s doing none of the “heavy lifting.” He tells you from his corner that he REALLY wants to get better at tennis. He wants you to teach him how to play better. He dreams of competing at Wimbledon with you as a doubles team. He just knows that together you can be an amazing winning team. But he says all this from his sitting spot at the edge of the court.

And every now and then he might stand up, and wave his arms, and tell you how “bad” you are at tennis, without ever taking responsibility for the fact that... he’s the one sitting still on the court, he’s the one who is not playing the game! 

You are still the only one running all over both sides of the court, covering his side AND your side.

Run.
Run.
Run.
Run.
Run.
Run… chasing ball after ball. 

And all he does is bop it back if it bounces within arm’s reach. 

Minimal effort.
Minimal commitment.

Have you ever felt confused by the dissonance between
someone's pious words and their exploitative actions?

What can you do if you realize this describes your emotional experience in this relationship?
How can you make it stop?

There’s only one choice that is guaranteed to shift the dynamics.

You’ve gotta exit the game.
Stop chasing the balls.
Stop running all over the court. 

Because... he’s not playing as an engaged partner. 

He’s not covering his territory on the court. 
He’s not playing the game. 
He’s just making you run... and he’s happy to do it. 

He's not unaware of it - even if he'd deny it all day long.

If you have been conditioned to chase the ball and do all the emotional heavy lifting, here’s what you need to do:

Stop. 

Once a coaching client told me, “I wanna work on me. What can I do? I wanna work on me, instead of just asking him to work on him.”

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My response: “Stop. Stop playing the game. Stop engaging in conversations that are running around in a circle where you’re just chasing the ball at the other end of the court, while he’s just lobbing you fresh balls to chase.”

Just. Stop.

Only keep playing with someone who’s willing to play energetically on their end of the court and cover their territory. Don’t chase balls lobbed by somebody who’s sitting on the sidelines just watching you run.

Exit the game. 

You are not responsible for someone else’s choice to intentionally abuse you. It’s not your shame that someone else chooses to emotionally abuse you. But, you are free to choose to stop chasing the balls. Remember this word picture next time you’re trying to recognize whether your spouse is really changing.

If they're just making you run... it might be time to put down your racket, and walk off the court.

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Do you find yourself saying things like:

• "My anxiety is acting up again"

• "I'm so clumsy, always forgetting things"

• "He didn't mean it this time"

You deserve to know if you're experiencing abuse.