Couples

Reassuring Your Partner

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When you feel like saying and doing things to reassure your partner the current health of your relationship probably doesn’t particularly depend on these things and when you don’t feel like saying and doing things to reassure your partner the current health of your relationship probably does depend on them. That’s the paradox. The times when your partner could benefit most from tangible signs of being wanted are the times when these signs are nowhere to be found because you’re not feeling it.

You can use this inverse barometer to your advantage, sort of like a check engine light in your car, where when you’re feeling stingy about manifestations of tenderness, care, and concern you know it’s in your best interests to override your feelings and manifest the behaviors anyway.

Otherwise you cede control of your life to your emotions, you basically become a robot who responds this way and that to emotional commands in the moment. But emotions are transitory, they rise up, stay around for a period of time, and then dissipate. If you’re really concerned with free will, as most people claim to be, then you’ll have no problem with the idea of relegating your emotions to the role they should have been inhabiting all along, which is an advisor with valuable information about the environment, not captain of the ship.

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