4 Signs Someone In Your Life Secretly Enjoys Watching You Struggle
Gökhan Yetimova | Pexels Some people in your life aren't rooting for you the way you think they are, and there are some signs you can look for that suggest someone in your life secretly enjoys watching you struggle.
These types of people show up with the right words and the right expressions, but underneath it all, they're satisfied when things don't go your way. Unfortunately, the tricky part is that these people aren't always easy to spot. They hide behind pleasant masks and helpful demeanors, which makes it almost impossible to call out what they're doing. Over time, the pattern starts to speak for itself, and once you see it, it's hard to unsee.
Here are four signs someone in your life secretly enjoys watching you struggle:
1. They can’t apologize
Saying sorry and accepting when we’re wrong is one of the most important things we can do in a relationship. Accepting responsibility for mistakes we make that affect others is a selfless, empathetic offering that our loved ones deserve. But when they hurt us, we deserve it too.
People who enjoy watching you struggle either cannot or will not apologize for their actions. They'll act as though they have done nothing wrong or that we are overreacting. Their pride won’t let them admit they were wrong. For these people, nothing and nobody is more important than their pride, and apologizing is not an option.
If someone hurts us and either refuses to apologize or expects us to write it off as normal, something isn’t right. We deserve better.
2. They tear down your confidence
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For these individuals to feel good about themselves, they need others to feel awful. They are the most insecure ones in the room, and because their pride and image are the most important things in their lives, they will do anything to protect it. In order to do that, the people closest to them suffer. They have to have leverage on everyone.
Attacking the confidence of the people around them is a fun game that serves a greater purpose of ensuring they feel better about themselves than everyone else. Any relationship can go through tough stretches, but there's a big difference between normal (temporary) friction and someone who is secretly rooting against you. If you notice that someone in your life only shows up when things are going wrong and gets oddly distant when things are going well, that's not a coincidence.
People with these traits might look confident on the outside, but research shows they're deeply insecure, and they cope with that by tearing down the people around them. It's not always only about you, but about the way they think they need to protect themselves.
3. They enjoy your struggles
While on the surface, these people might come across as sympathetic, they are secretly enjoying every hardship you endure. If things aren’t going well for the people around them, they feel better about their own lives in comparison, and it would be such a shame if that ego boost was taken away from them.
This sign isn’t that easy to detect because of the apparent concern these people express, but they are likely to suggest solutions that make things worse for us. If we suspect sabotage, we need to wave goodbye to these people in our rearview mirror.
Research from Leiden University found that people with low self-esteem are way more likely to feel schadenfreude, or pleasure from someone else's hard times, because watching someone else struggle makes them feel less bad about their own lives. The person in your life who always seems weirdly calm or even a little too interested when things go wrong for you are feeding off of your struggles.
4. They cannot empathize
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By the time we’re adults, we either have developed a sense of empathy or we don’t. Some people tend to have little to no experience of empathy, and even in our darkest moments when we are desperate for help, they might look at us with an indulgent smile instead of offering their hands.
This lack of empathy not only makes forming a relationship difficult but also dangerous to our mental health. Like it or not, we need our feelings validated from time to time by those closest to us, and without empathy, this kind of person cannot or will not allow us to do this. Sometimes, because they are incapable, and other times because our misery serves a purpose to them.
A lack of empathy is a big indicator of an individual who secretly enjoys watching you struggle. Without empathy, this person has no reason not to hurt us or care if they do. For our own mental health and self-care, these people are best avoided. As difficult as it can be, some people belong in our past.
Those who sit back and enjoy watching you struggle don't deserve that coveted front row seat to your life. The kindest things we can do for ourselves is to cut out these people from our lives and surround ourselves with people who want to see us win. Because let’s face it, we deserve better than that!
Rosie Wylor-Owen is an award-winning urban fantasy author with a soft spot for all things paranormal.
