Base your desire to be in your relationship on your present experience, not on some future idea of what you want it to be. Don’t let fantasy bonds keep you in a relationship that’s going nowhere. When we feel pressured to maintain a certain emotional equilibrium around our partners, we breed secondary emotions—guilt, shame, and anxiety—for experiencing anything other than happiness and calm. Inevitably, life will throw more things than just happiness and calm your way, so it’s important to feel safe feeling those less comfortable emotions in the presence of your partner. Sure, “regular basis” is a time frame for you to define. Some people would say it’s never OK to be made to feel such things in a relationship, but hey, we’re all humans, and we all say hurtful or unsupportive things from time to time. If your partner messes up occasionally and responds with remorse, that might not be a reason to call it quits. However, if the above feelings are common ones, it’s time to end the relationship. Your better half doesn’t have to love every member of your family and every one of your friends, but it is important that they’re willing to embark on significant other duties without (much) protest. You, of course, do the same, right? Look, we all have our “crazy” moments, and we ought to respect that our partners have theirs. We’re all imperfect, and some emotions like jealousy, insecurity, anger, and what-have-you can trigger intensely defensive behavior or outsized reactions. But if you’ve lost the ability to clearly see that your needs are warranted and deserving of airtime, that’s a huge red flag. You deserve to be able to ask for things or express your emotions without being made to feel like you’re “crazy.” If you don’t go, your self-esteem will. (Making you feel like you’re being overly sensitive or “crazy” is a classic gaslighting tactic, by the way.) Now, it should be noted that insecurity in the pockets between texting, calling, and being together could also be an indicator of insecure attachment—something that’s best explored further with your therapist. It’s not your partner’s responsibility to heal those wounds (at least entirely). If this sounds like it might be an issue for you, I do encourage you to learn more about your attachment style and connect with a mental health professional. However, for those of us who developed “attachment issues” somewhere along the way, we tend to seek out relationships that mirror those early attachment relationships. And so, we might be maintaining a less than optimal relationship with our partner because it’s what we know and not because it’s what’s healthy. The right partner will be supporting you as you work through your attachment issues, not stoking them or making you feel guilty about them. Depending on the circumstances, keeping things quiet initially can add to the excitement, but there comes a point when being their “little secret” is more degrading than anything else. You deserve to know your partner is proud of you and committed to the relationship.
