“If your actions don’t live up to your words, you have nothing to say.” DaShanne Stokes
A man claimed to be madly in love with his girlfriend and wanted to marry her... All while buying a house far from where her job opportunities were, talking about it being his house, and turning down her ideas about how to decorate it. From my point of view, he was acting like he was trying to scare her off.
It's easy to pay lip service to almost anything, but where we put our time and energy is a better measure of how we really feel. If we're being honest, our actions will match our words. Do your actions, like the example above, indicate you’re just not that into them? We need to be honest, not just with ourselves, but our partner as well, especially when we have mixed or indecisive feels about the sustainability of our relationship. It's selfish to waste either of your time. Do the work or move on.
Are you there for them? It is easy to say you will always be there for someone and then be mysteriously absent when they need a ride to the emergency room. You don’t need to be at your partner's beck and call at all times, but you should have their back when it really matters. When they are sick, facing a death in the family, or in a crisis.
Are you reliable? This is similar to the above, but leans more to being on time, in contact, at home when you say you'll be and if not phone ahead. If you say you’ll pick up milk on your way home from work, do you say you forgot because you’re too tired? Things of this sort, though they may seem small, are telling as to how important the relationship is.
Do you take your partner's needs and wants into account? A healthy relationship is going to mean you can’t always get your way. You will see movies you don’t like, eat food you find gross, spend time with people you’d rather not. A relationship is about compromise and finding solutions that you both can live with.
Do you keep secrets your partner should know? Those that have nothing to hide, hide nothing. Our partners don’t need to know everything that ever happened to us or every thought we have. They should, however, be clued into the big things. If we were abused as a child. If we spent time in jail. If we have children we don’t see. It is hard to have trust in a relationship when we are being kept in the dark.
Do you allow others to interfere in your relationship? We sometimes turn to friends and family to share our problems and doubts about our relationship. Depending on the person, these people then might interject themselves in your partnership. It is hard to be alone while facing a crowd.
Do you leave them feeling unloved or unsure where they stand? Some people leave us feeling almost crazy trying to read them. They tell us we are the best thing that ever happened to them, then forget our birthday. It is hard to feel secure when your partner talks constantly about this hot single coworker that just got assigned to their team.
Do you blame them for everything? It can be hard to own our mistakes, especially when there could be a painful consequence. Though this is true, our partner should not be a scapegoat for all that goes wrong for us or even our own unhappiness.
Do you lack empathy when they have a bad day? I told a guy I was seeing that I had a crappy day. He texted back that it was too bad and then went on talking about other things. That is a big red flag that he really wasn’t that interested in me and wasn’t emotionally available to me.
Do you make excuses not to be at important events? You may not have an interest in going to a partner's work party or visit their great aunt in a nursing home. While many of us might feel this way, part of caring for your partner is an interest in their life and supporting them. If an event is important to them it should be to you because your partner should be important to you.
You may find in reading these, that you are unintentionally sending mixed or off putting messages. You may even rethink if you aren’t that into them and consider what your next step should be.