Support: Good or Bad?

The first article was really fun to read! I always knew it was important to be there for your partner, but I never knew there were two ways to do it. I never would have thought that invisible support could be so important. It seems like a lot of people have a hard time doing something nice for someone like their partner without getting recognition for it. You would think that your relationship would improve if your partner always knew about the nice things you did for them, because they can see those thing and then do nice things in return. Also next time they get mad at you they might let it go or be less mad because they think of the nice things you did for them. But it's also important to do those nice things for your partner with no recognition, because then you can feel good about yourself, and help your partner feel less stressed too. Then they might feel good and not know why, and both of you will still reap the benefits. It makes sense that men have a harder time giving invisible support, because they are always trying to fix problems. Women need to appreciate that they are trying to help the best they can.
I think what this next article is saying is that support is better when the person in need of support doesn't actually seek it out, but they know it's there if they do need it. This also kind of goes with what we learned about last week, how when people thought about how their partner helped them with a goal they were less likely to say they were going to spend time on that goal. Too much support can make the person receiving the support not self-sufficient enough. Sometime support like they said to quit smoking may make the partner more annoyed, quitting smoking is something they have to do on their own. It makes sense that advice giving, minimization of feeling, identification of feelings, and encouragement of recovery are also not helpful. Someone doesn't want to hear how to fix their problems, they don't want to know you went through something similar, they don't want to be told its ok, and they don't want to be told it will be over soon. In reality they feel like crap, they don't care how you solved your problem, because theirs isn't going to work out the same way. It may not always be this bad, but it is now so shut up. It's weird that trying to cheer someone up doesn't work, because sometimes it helps me if someone just makes me laugh. I can see this when I talk to my best friend on the phone, and I'm upset about something and I want to talk to her about it, but instead we talk about other things and I never bring it up. At the end of the conversation I feel better even though I didn't talk about my problem. What we talked about got my mind off of my problem and I feel better.