maybe your partner needs “constant” reassurance because you’ve demonstrated yourself untrustworthy as a partner.

being un-impeccable with your word breeds a partner who cannot believe or properly receive verbal affirmation. If I can’t believe you’ll be on time then I’m less likely to believe you when you’re flattering me.

and it’s not necessarily intentional—you don’t fall asleep during quality time because you don’t love your partner you do it because you’re tired. but it takes intent *not* to do so and that lack of effort reverberates across the emotional landscape as commentary on their worth.

but because we are taught that the quotidian complications of partnership are negligible in comparison to a partner who can’t take you to Bergdorf’s or Smith and Wollensky we think the question “am I worthy of staying up for?” is somehow remissible.

the need for “constant” reassurance is most often more deeply bound up with those less dramatic moments where we wanted to be seen, held, and heard and simply weren’t. your body still registered those emotional let-downs you now call nonevents because they lacked proper hysteria.

you wanted them to come home early and they didn’t. you wanted them to say “I love you” first this morning and they didn’t. you wanted to watch Avatar and they fell asleep. those things seem small but they aren’t. your body still felt that. get someone willing to acknowledge it.