“You Always Do This” And 7 Other Phrases Men Don’t Realize Make Women Furious

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Communication can be tricky. Sometimes, the less a man says, the more room he leaves for us to read into things. Unfortunately, men say these hurtful phrases a lot, without even realizing they’re driving us insane.

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Am I in trouble?

When a man won’t do something you want him to do, or says something that you make a funny face at, and he says, “Am I in trouble?” he sort of puts his head down, like a puppy afraid of being smacked with a newspaper.

Why it hurts

“Am I in trouble?” is a question a child asks his mother. The second a man asks this, it makes you feel like he is afraid of you, that he walks around on eggshells, and that he thinks you are quick to anger. You feel like his mother and not his girlfriend.

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Do I have to go?

You ask him to come with you to a friend’s birthday or dinner at your sister’s or to help you pick out a computer, and he asks, “Do I have to go?” He gives you that look like he’s ready to negotiate. He offers to clean the apartment if you let him stay at home.

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Why it hurts

You wouldn’t have asked him to go if it wasn’t important to you. You know his time is valuable, too. So when he is so bold as to try to negotiate his way out of it, you feel like his comfort is more important to him than helping you out. And now if he does come along, you’ll know he doesn’t want to be there.

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You always do this

Whatever this is, he says that you always do it. You get upset about something, or you drop the ball on something, and he says you always do this.

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Why it hurts

Anytime somebody says that you always do something it implies that there have been countless times they have not spoken up when you’ve upset them. This can send you into a tailspin wondering, “What else do I always do that you apparently never say anything about until you’re ready to explode?”

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You’re acting just like your mother

There isn’t really a good reason for a guy to say this. It should be rather self-explanatory to men why this isn’t a nice thing to say. But let’s just spell it out.

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Why it hurts

Do you men have any idea how many years and how much emotional energy we dedicate to psychologically analyzing and understanding our mothers very well so that we can absolutely avoid making the same mistakes they made? Sure, our moms have plenty of lovable qualities! But guys, you’ve never once said, “You’re acting just like your mother” when we’re doing something lovable. To say a woman is acting like her mother is to say she has overlooked a tremendous detail in her behavior. You can cause her to become unraveled.

Can we not do a whole thing tonight?

It’s Friday night, you call him up and start suggesting recipes you could make for dinner, and he says, “Can we not do a whole thing tonight? Can we just, like, eat our own stuff and watch TV?”

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Why it hurts

All men mean by this (usually) is that they’re burnt out and don’t want to dedicate any energy to their entertainment that evening. But the way women interpret it is that we make things too complicated and that you haven’t enjoyed all of those home-made meatloaf and game nights we’ve organized. It makes us feel like when we put a nice evening together for you that it feels like an obligation instead of a joy.

They’re just clothes

You’re moving in together, or your place is too messy, and he suggests you get rid of some of you clothes. When you cling to them, he says, “They’re just clothes.”

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Why it’s hurtful

Men just don’t understand that clothes are not just clothes to us: they are aesthetic manifestations of who we are. We choose every item carefully to represent ourselves. More than that, clothes can be relics to us, like that little-knitted top we got at a music festival with our best friends in college. Clothes to us are what autographed baseballs are to them. Can you imagine if we said, “It’s just a football?”

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Stop being afraid and go for it

You’re thinking out loud to him about a business idea you have or something you want to pitch to your boss. You’re weighing the pros and cons. He says, “Stop being afraid and just go for it.”

Why it’s hurtful

Everybody wants their partner to see them as brave and ambitious! Nobody wants to hear their partner call them “afraid.” And men need to understand that bouncing ideas off of friends and partner are a part of our process—it’s what we do before we go for it. It doesn’t mean we are scared.

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We’re so close we don’t need to have sex all of the time

He thinks this is a compliment. He thinks this is his way of saying your relationship has evolved, and you have an incredible mental and emotional connection.

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Why it’s hurtful

Even if the statement is true, gentlemen, women never want to hear this. In fact, we want to hear quite the opposite: we want to hear that you do feel like you need to have sex with us. Not because it takes the place of some emotional connection, but because we are that irresistible.