What to do when they don't see an issue with their behaviour

What do you do when someone refuses to see the issue with their behaviour?

In Snack Size Deep Dive 11, we unpack one of the most frustrating relationship dynamics: repeatedly explaining your feelings to someone who won’t take accountability.

Whether it’s a partner, friend, or family member, being dismissed, gaslit, or met with defensiveness can slowly erode your self-trust. You start questioning yourself. You wonder if you’re too sensitive, you over-explain, you shrink yourself. 

But here’s the uncomfortable truth:
 Sometimes they genuinely don’t understand.
 Sometimes they understand and don’t care enough to change.
 And sometimes not seeing the issue protects their identity.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why people avoid accountability
• Emotional unavailability and fragile self-image
• How lack of accountability causes cognitive dissonance 
• Gaslighting (and why it isn’t always intentional)
• The emotional impact of chronic dismissal
• When to stop explaining and start deciding
• How to set boundaries that don’t require agreement
• The difference between lack of awareness and lack of willingness

This episode is about self-respect, emotional regulation, boundaries, and choosing what you’re willing to accept in relationships.

Transcript

[00:00:00] If you've ever found yourself explaining the issue over and over to somebody who just doesn't see the issue, this episode is about when you finally stop trying to convince them and start deciding what you're willing to live with.

Hello everybody. Welcome to your regularly scheduled self-reflection. I am Tash, and this is things we say in therapy. Snack size, deep dives. This is snack size, deep dive 11, and. This is just a little snackable deep dive into a mental health and psychology related topic for self-reflection and self-compassion.

Learning to deal with discomfort to improve your mental health.

so many people, go to therapy trying to get an explanation on why somebody they love, [00:01:00] refuses to see their pain, refuses to understand where they're coming from or address an issue.

No matter how much you explain,

but here's the uncomfortable truth:

sometimes they genuinely don't understand the issue, sometimes they do understand, but they don't care enough,

and sometimes not seeing the issue protects them. Protects them from having to take responsibility, having to take accountability, dealing with the discomfort of owning the fact that they've caused you pain.

This episode is about the impact of somebody

who constantly refuses to acknowledge the consequences of their behavior.

This is uncomfortable on purpose, so let's get into it.

Before I start, I'd just like to remind you to subscribe, follow on whatever platform you are listening to this on or watching this on. I love making this content and if you find it helpful or relatable, please leave a review. I would love to get this out to [00:02:00] more people who would enjoy it or find it valuable.

Thank you so much.

So I mentioned in Monday's episode how patterns that we keep are in some way beneficial, even if they're generally toxic or leading you down a bad path. And your life would be better if you left it behind. We keep patterns for a reason. For some reason, the pattern you keep is benefiting you in some way.

If someone refuses to see an issue, refuses to acknowledge the pain they've caused you, it is benefiting them in some way,

and so they're less motivated to try and see it or to acknowledge it.

Behavior continues because it works. Avoiding the accountability works for them. Minimizing what you're feeling works for them

or shifting the blame onto you works for them

If emotionally unavailable people can still feel comfortable despite you feeling uncomfortable? They will. They're gonna choose that option [00:03:00] and that option comes along with ignoring your feelings, ignoring the issue, ignoring what you're explaining to them.

These people will always care more about how they're feeling than how you are feeling because their nervous systems are too fragile to deal with the discomfort of owning the fact that they've caused other people pain.

Because to them this signals that they're a bad person, that they're not lovable, whatever their wounds are, it reflects that it.

This is what people mean when they say that people are at war with themselves and not with you.

When you're trying to stop caring what other people think when you're trying to.

Ignore people's opinions of you and embrace your authentic self a bit more. You'll probably most likely hear very intelligent people say that others are at war with themselves and not with you, and therefore their opinion reflects themselves and not you.

When people don't wanna give a shit about you, they won't, But that's not because you are not worthy of giving a shit [00:04:00] about,

they're too unstable to give a shit because

If they were to give a shit, that would mean taking responsibility, taking accountability, and so they treat you poorly.

And they engage in unhealthy behaviors, dismissive behaviors,

because if they didn't, they'd have to acknowledge all the bad things.

They don't wanna change because they don't wanna face themselves. Not all of the time, but a lot of the time people like this have a massive cognitive dissonance, meaning that

their self-image, that they're protecting when they avoid taking accountability for things. For example, I'm a good person. I'm a good partner. I treat people well.

For people with fragile egos, fragile sense of self, fragile nervous systems. I'm a good partner, or I'm a good person and I hurt people, or I've hurt someone can't coexist at the same time because if they admit that they've hurt somebody, that then [00:05:00] equates to them that they're a bad person, that they're not a good partner.

It's very black and white thinking because they haven't taught themselves how to emotionally regulate, how to rationalize emotions. It's all very reactive. It's all very black and white.

it's a distorted reality. So in order to keep themselves thinking that they are a good person, a good partner, they have to convince themselves that they haven't done anything wrong, which involves avoiding the issue, avoiding your pain,

or other slightly more manipulative behaviors like gaslighting you into thinking that you shouldn't be feeling the way you are,

that you are overreacting, that it didn't happen the way that you remember it.

All of that is easier for the unhealed person than just taking accountability for their actions and for the pain they caused you

uh, because that would mean their sense of self just completely dismantles.

You cannot logic or explain somebody

out of a [00:06:00] defense mechanism that protects their identity. They have to learn to change themselves because people protect their self image and self identity at all costs.

You can't be wasting your time investing in someone's potential.

I have had countless relationships and countless friendships where I have continuously explained myself and gone over the same issue over and over and over,

having the same fights, being frustrated about the same things.

Trying over and over to get them to understand where I'm coming from

until one day you're like, why am I doing this? I've had the same fight over and over. It is absolutely exhausting.

If it works for them, if they have to protect their self identity in order to feel stable, they're gonna do that. No amount of explanation, no amount of telling them how I feel is going to change that.

I wanted them to be the way I wanted them to be Because I didn't want the relationship to end. I didn't want the connection with them to end. [00:07:00] I wanted them to be the person that I would be able to pursue a relationship or a friendship with. That absolutely is my fault. It gets to a point where are you are self sabotaging by continuously trying to get this person to change.

They're not going to change.

Even if they love you, even if you've been with them for a long time, Emotionally unavailable people are not going to change for you because they want, they have to protect themselves first at all costs.

If you are going over and over and over the same thing with somebody and nothing is changing, or they're changing for a few weeks and then falling back into old patterns. They don't wanna change for you, and that's just the brutal truth. You either have to decide whether you're gonna deal with that behavior for life, possibly, or you walk away.

So let's talk a bit about the impact on

people who aren't

having their emotional needs met who are in a relationship or a friendship with [00:08:00] somebody who refuses to see the issue with their behavior, what are the emotional impacts of that?

Eventually self-doubt creeps in if they gaslight you enough, if they dismiss you enough, and you don't yet have the strength to walk away, which is fine. A lot of the time people don't, and it's a skill to detach. But you start to think, am I too sensitive? Am I overreacting? Maybe I expect too much of people.

You start gaslighting yourself into thinking that there's no way other people would react like this. I'm overreacting and that's what's causing the problem.

A lot of emotionally unavailable people who want you to stay for their comfort and their safety, but don't wanna change will tell you things like you are too sensitive.

Other people wouldn't react like this.

That they don't think you should be feeling the way that you're feeling and that you ask for too much. These will eventually drive you to the point where you start questioning yourself and that destroys your self trust. I've been [00:09:00] there, I've had someone literally say to me, you are, you shouldn't be feeling that way. Trust yourself. Trust the way that you are feeling. No one else is gonna understand that. Truly, apart from you. Don't ever let someone else tell you how to feel ever.

So when this becomes a reality, when you start questioning yourself, if you have wounds that allow you to overstay in relationships where you're not seen, you're not validated, you're not aligned with the other person. You will start to shrink yourself to make the other person comfortable. You will start to dismiss your own feelings so that you can protect yourself from that conflict again, so that you don't create an issue by bringing up the problems you have, again. You'll then slowly start to tolerate more and more disrespect, more things that you wouldn't usually accept. You begin to [00:10:00] blame yourself before they even do. You start taking on all of the emotional labor within the relationship, when people dunno how to communicate or talk about their feelings and you have to drag it out of them. It is so exhausting.

There has to be some sort of reciprocation there.

So I just wanna clarify about gaslighting. Gaslighting doesn't have to be malicious and intentional in order to be destabilizing for the victim.

People have the ability to act this way and have this as a defense mechanism without realizing they're doing it.

It's not an excuse. To be treating people this way, but it is a reality that people do it without knowing. And although it's their responsibility to recognize that and to address it and stop, a lot of people don't, [00:11:00] but it's also not your responsibility to save them, to try and get them to stop being like that.

Don't make excuses for people who hurt you. It's their responsibility, not yours.

If you are constantly trying to convince somebody that your pain matters, that you being hurt by something they did matters and needs to be addressed, you are already negotiating your worth. You are trying to convince them that you are worthy of being treated with respect.

There is an important distinction between a lack of awareness of what someone is doing due to a trauma response, a learned behavior that helps keep them emotionally safe and a lack of willingness to care about you enough to address a problem.

When you bring up an issue with whoever you think about while you're listening to this episode, do they get defensive [00:12:00] immediately?

Or do they get curious about the problem? Do they reflect on their behavior?

Do they make steps to adjust their behavior at all?

Because someone who lacks awareness, uh, but cares about you will attempt repair.

someone who benefits from a dynamic where your feelings are dismissed, where issues you bring up are not addressed, will debate your reality and your feelings. They'll flip the script. They'll triangulate the situation.

They'll essentially try and make you feel like you don't get a say that you're wrong.

We shouldn't be looking for perfection in other people,

but we need responsiveness. We need curiosity, and we need action.

I think with the increase in social media these days, it's a lot more common for people to expect perfection because there's so much anxiety around

issues in relationships and being treated [00:13:00] poorly.

And it is generally labeled as knowing your worth to sort of cut someone out immediately after they make a mistake. I,

it is seen as not tolerating disrespect, but I actually think that's an avoidance technique. If you cut people off at the smallest sign of miscommunication or mistake, or not knowing what you're feeling without you telling them,

you aren't showing self-respect, you're avoiding responsibility.

You are avoiding learning how to communicate effectively and you're avoiding letting people in.

So what do we actually do when someone refuses to see an issue

with their behavior? First of all, you need to stop over explaining yourself. It is a natural habit and response to feeling misunderstood. I do this. You need to understand what you're feeling first. You need to clarify it in your own mind. State it once, state it clearly, communicate it effectively.

If they truly don't see an issue with their actions, more words are not gonna [00:14:00] create more insight.

They either don't see an issue and are not bothering to listen to you because they don't wanna change.

There is a mismatch there that isn't worth saving.

They don't see the issue with their behavior, but they're willing to listen and they're willing to try. this is worth working towards.

Or they say they're willing to work on it together, but repeatedly fall back into old patterns and are unable to align with you for an extended period of time. This is not worth saving.

You need to shift from convincing. To deciding, instead of continuously trying to make them understand,

you need to start asking yourself, if nothing changes, can I live with this? Do I want to continue a connection with somebody who acts this way? At some point, we become responsible for the situations that we're putting ourselves in.

Making this decision for yourself, it's terrifying, and it's always gonna be scary because change is scary. However, it's really empowering. Once you become [00:15:00] safe in yourself and you realize that you actually have agency over your decisions, and as long as you have yourself, you'll be fine. Making those decisions to no longer continue a connection with somebody who isn't treating you with respect is so empowering.

Make sure you are caring more about yourself and your happiness than being chosen by somebody else.

Stop measuring love by potential.

Don't date promises. Don't date someone's future insight. Don't date their goals. Don't date their ambitions.

Don't attach yourself to who they could be if they healed. Work with who they are right now.

You cannot build a stable relationship on things that you hope for.

You need to learn how to set boundaries that don't require agreement from somebody else.

Setting a boundary does not need someone else's validation. It's what you decide for yourself.

Setting a boundary under this context could sound like you don't have to agree with me, but I'm not gonna stay in conversations where I'm dismissed.

[00:16:00] You don't have to see where this is disrespectful, but I'm not gonna tolerate it. That kind of thing, and once you set a boundary, you need to stick to it. Otherwise, people take advantage of the fact that your boundaries will waver or collapse.

If someone else doesn't see an issue with their behavior that you have a problem with, it is not your job to force them to understand. It is your job to decide what you accept from other people.

Ending with a bit of compassion. Sometimes people don't understand things because that was normal in their family to dismiss, to minimize, to not understand issues because it benefited themselves.

Sometimes people don't see the problem because they have never been held accountable for their actions before and they don't understand the feelings that come up with that, but also because it protects them from shame. These are not excuses to act this way. Understanding why someone acts the way they act does not mean you should accept it.

Uh, yes. It can make you feel sorry for them. Yes. It's [00:17:00] sad sometimes the reasons why people act the way they do, because of their background or whatever it may be, but that doesn't mean you should accept it.

You are allowed to require awareness from the people that you choose to have in your life.

you don't always have to just accept people the way they are. In order to have people in your life, you get to choose what you accept.

And if someone repeatedly shows you that they don't see a problem, believe them.

Thank you so much for listening to Snack Size, deep Dive 11. I hope you come back next week. I've got really interesting topic for Monday, which is gonna be about the difference between being brutally honest and just being a wanker. I have wanted to talk about that for a while because I think it's a very interesting psychologically and very important insight to have.

So I hope to see you on Monday. I hope you have a lovely rest of your day, rest of your night whenever you're listening to this, [00:18:00] and I'll see you next time. If this felt uncomfortable, that means something clicked. I'll see you again. Bye.