Why I Thought Love Was Something You Didn't Have to Keep Proving - Just Like a Chair

I thought love just stayed there.

I treated it like a chair in a room. You don't keep checking if it's still there. It just is. You walk in and sit down.

That made sense to me.

It didn't seem to work that way for my partner.

She needed to hear that I loved her. She needed affection and reassurance, even when nothing had happened to make me think our relationship was in doubt.

I remember wondering why I had to keep repeating something that hadn't changed.

I'd told her I loved her. I was still there. I was still choosing to be with her.

What more was I supposed to do?

I thought she was being needy.

I resented the idea that I had to keep proving something I thought I'd already made clear.

And sometimes I deliberately held back.

I didn't want to feel that I had to say or do something just because she needed reassurance. I wanted her to trust that my feelings hadn't changed.

Looking back, that's a pretty miserable reason to withhold affection from someone you love.

But at the time, I felt I was being pushed into something that shouldn't have been necessary.

There was something else going on too.

I was beginning to wonder whether she was with me because she loved me or because being together was convenient.

I didn't say that out loud.

Instead, I became suspicious.

I'd notice things that made me question how committed she was. I'd wonder whether I was being taken for granted, whether I was putting more into the relationship than I was getting back.

So when she told me she didn't feel loved, I didn't hear someone telling me she was unhappy.

I heard criticism.

I heard that everything I'd done counted for nothing.

And I'd start defending myself.

I'd point out the things I'd done for her, the time we'd spent together, the ways I'd tried to make our lives better.

I'd remind her that I was still there.

I was almost making a case for why she ought to feel loved.

It didn't help.

She was telling me how she felt at that moment, and I was giving her a history of my behaviour.

I could explain why I loved her for hours without actually making her feel any closer to me.

I struggled with that for a long time.

For me, love could sit in the background. I didn't need to be reminded of it every day to believe it was still there.

My partner seemed to need something different.

She wanted to feel it in the way we spoke, the affection we showed each other and the attention we gave one another.

And I was resisting that because I thought she should experience love the way I did.

The chair analogy made perfect sense to me, but I was expecting her to sit in a chair she couldn't always see.

I started to understand why telling her that my love hadn't changed wasn't necessarily reassuring.

I was asking her to take my word for something she was telling me she couldn't feel.

That didn't mean my love wasn't real.

But I couldn't expect her to experience it simply because I knew it was there.

I had to think about how I showed it.

And, if I'm being fair, I also had to admit that I wasn't always as affectionate or attentive as I thought I was.

I'd get caught up in work, things around the house or whatever else needed doing. I'd assume we were fine because we'd been fine the day before.

I wasn't deliberately neglecting her. I just wasn't thinking about whether she felt close to me.

I've become more conscious of that.

I tell her I love her more often. I try to show affection without waiting for her to ask for it.

I make more effort to notice when we've drifted apart during an ordinary day.

None of that comes naturally all the time.

There are still moments when I feel the old resentment creeping in. When I wonder why I have to make such a conscious effort to communicate something that feels obvious to me.

And I still think it's reasonable to want my love to be remembered, even on days when I'm distracted or less affectionate.

I don't want every quiet day to become a question about whether I care.

I also need to feel wanted and reassured sometimes. That's not something I should have to pretend I don't need.

But I can see how much time I spent arguing about whether her need for affection was reasonable instead of simply being affectionate.

I made something quite ordinary into a point of principle.

I loved her, and I was withholding ways of showing it because I didn't like feeling that I had to.

I still think love can sit quietly in the background.

But I live with someone who doesn't always feel it that way.

And when I think about how much energy I spent resisting the idea of telling her I loved her more often, I do wonder what I thought I was achieving.

I was so determined that she should know I loved her without me having to keep saying it.

I could have just told her.

I've put together The ADHD Relationship Toolkit, a practical guide to communication, connection and boundaries, based on my experience. It includes conversation scripts and a fillable weekly check-in sheet.