Yes, but the recipient of the put downs has to go deaf, put their foot down, or retrain the other. Either break their bad habit of putting you down, or leave. Personally, I would take a break. Or at the very least make it SOOO NOT WORTH IT for every put down. Give them three times the hell of what they give you. Not Buddhist like at all. You know those people who you are afraid of engaging because they would raise that much hell? Be that person. Again, not Buddha like. But seems to work. When times are good, be Buddha like. When he treats you bad, accept it, fight it, or leave.

Hi Erin,

My answer is no if you want to keep things kind and nice for the parter at fault and you want the other to not be disappointed anymore. That person’s action has been done too many times, and now it has become an habit, and I suppose words and empathy were not enough to change it. You can break such an habit in two ways. You either apply randomly a strong action every time the bad behaviour happens and you make that punishment always more painful at every occurrence but not threatened in advance, or you give that person randomly some very nice reward when he actually does something good and this reward have to be always better but not agreed in advance. As you see, it is like you are training a dog, and personally it feels like depriving that person of his human dignity; not to count that punishment or rewards come at your own expenses; the older the person, the more time it will take. In my view, the easiest thing to do is to break the relationship (let’s say after at least 3 disappointments). If the partner at fault cared for the other, he/she will feel ill and that will be his/her punishment, a few months later one may try to re-establish the relationship and see whether that person learned the lesson. If the partner at fault did not care, then it was better the relationship actually ended.

Anyway, do not forget that one can still salvage the relationship by being a pious saint that forgives his/her partner every time.

In my experience, people put other people down when they are feeling bad about themselves. If the partner is willing to work on themselves so that they stop this bad, insecure habit, then I feel that yes, the relationship could be fixed.

If the partner is constantly putting you down, there is no “relationship”. It is a fictitious story about the two of you that is completely in your mind. It does not exist. The good you see is the halo effect. The “love” you feel is only attraction. None of it is real. How do I know? Because you used the word “salvaged”.salvage us for things like metal scrap. If you were in a real relationship with real love, you would have said “saved”. Saving is for living things like people, animals, and relationships. Or the short answer to the question…..NO.