On the bus down to the shore the other day, a guy in front of me started talking on the phone with a woman.

(Not sure if it was his wife, but that’s my best guess)

It was pretty painful to listen to. It was clear the two of them did NOT have a good relationship — I haven’t heard a conversation with that much resentment in a long time.

Indeed, the guy had all the hallmarks of a man who had no control over his life and no respect from his woman.

Empty threats, passive aggressive comments. It was hard to believe the two were even together. Their “talk” ended with him hanging up the phone on her brother, who was staying over and had some problems which were inconvenient for our guy. He got annoyed, pouted, then cut him off — screening his attempts to call back.

Pathetic, but who knew what sort of baggage they had? I put it out of mind.

Fast forward 2 hours later on our trip and we get to our first stop. Unfortunately a previous bus had been cancelled, so there were a bunch of people who were getting on our bus who didn’t have seats. One of them was an 80 year old man.

The poor guy was trying to brace himself in the middle of the aisle, but the next stop wasn’t for another hour. I immediately got up and told him to get in my seat.

Anyway, this gave me the opportunity to talk to the man next to our salty fellow, Joe, and we had a great conversation.

Unfortunately, salty dude didn’t like that very much. About 30 minutes in he started playing really crappy music NOT with headphones but out of his speaker phones.

Everyone around was wondering what was going on, Joe quietly told me “he’s pissed we’re talking.”

I checked it out, and indeed: salty guy had the face of a lemon, and was giving us the cold shoulder.

The childishness was truly hilarious, and everybody around this part of the bus started smiling to each other, amused at the situation.

The point of this story?

Relationships have their own dynamics, but these dynamics fundamentally come from YOU.

I suspected when salt was talking on the phone, he was a weak willed, self-absorbed twat (the worst combination). But wasn’t 100% sure — you never know how deep it goes… certain people (like spouses in bad marriages) can bring out the worst in us.

But later it was clear his behavior wasn’t limited to his wife, but to everyone around him. When people didn’t give him what he wanted, and he acted like a child… which made him the laughing stock of the bus.

So, if you’re not happy in your relationship, and ESPECIALLY if you’re not happy how other people treat you — take a good look at yourself and ask:

How am I fucking up?

Because I guarantee, you are. And blaming it on others isn’t going to make it better… just worse.

And if you want help figuring out where these problems are, and how to change them?

Apply here to work with me: www.patstedman.com/application

Enjoy your Sunday,
Pat

PS If you ARE thinking of breaking up with your girlfriend, or you’ve got relationship problems.. be sure to read this first: https://www.patstedman.com/blog/2016/03/04/thinking-of-breaking-up/