If You Care About Me, Show Me

If you care about me, show it in your eyes. Show me reciprocity, and convince me that our love is collaborative and real. Because being ignored one day and acknowledged the next by the people we love the most can lead to pain and uncertainty.

Conscious, mature, and authentic love requires commitment. We forge strong bonds with the people we love: our children, our friends, and our partners. These bonds are based on a stable sense of emotional security that shouldn’t change depending on the day, one’s mood, or one’s priorities.

By demanding security in our relationships, we’re not demonstrating a need for control or excessive attachment. Needing security in our commitments doesn’t mean we need control, or that we need constant displays of affection.

In reality, it’s much simpler: if you care about me, let me be a part of your world, don’t exclude me.

However, the wish for a balanced and even-sided relationship isn’t always fulfilled: some people don’t know how, don’t want to, or don’t have the right skills. Arrangements based on emotional understanding need to be put in place. We need to offer the other person love and serenity, not a carousel ride that goes around and around.

Let’s reflect on it.

When I feel like I don’t matter to you anymore

Nobody can live in a constant state of uncertainty. We need to have a sense of stability and believe in a sense of strength so that we can remain calm, knowing that every effort, every gesture, every dream, every investment, is all worth it.

Something that we should also keep in mind is that every person understands and experiences love differently. However, both parties should arrive at a balance where harmony exists, where nobody loses and everyone wins.

However, sometimes small emotional discrepancies trigger clashes in the relationship:

• Couples will not always be completely harmonious, without crises or disagreements. Relationships are built by breaking down differences, reaching agreements, respecting each other’s point of view, and knowing how to manage emotions.

• Your partner might not have the same style of emotional communication as you. If they don’t say they love you every day, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve stopped feeling that way.

• Love should be perceived as authentic, comforting, and uplifting by each partner. If one person doesn’t perceive, experience, or feel it that way, that’s when problems appear.

Love should never be taken for granted

These times of crisis, when the painful sensation of feeling unloved arises, may be related to the fact that routine, sometimes, makes us take our love for granted.

Love never ceases to demand effort. We make little sacrifices at the beginning of the relationship without even being aware of the effort they require, since we have a great deal of strength. But eventually, the effort put forth is less and less, and the temptation to give in to comfort arises, until we only give what we want to the relationship. L

We can take it for granted that the sun will rise tomorrow, that spring will come after winter. However, we can never trust that someone who told us they loved us yesterday will keep loving us if we don’t take care of them, show them affection, or share our lives with them.

A stable and happy relationship understands the value of details, knowing gestures, surprises, dedication, and seeing the love of one’s life as a reason to hope.

Images courtesy of Nicoletta Ceccolli, Anna Dittman and Arth New Day