Five minutes stream of consciousness pt. 2

I’ve been thinking a lot about saying “I love you” recently. What it means to me to hear someone say it to me / what it means to me to say it to someone else / what it means for others.

My partner does not say it much and only ever in return when I say it. So far. Although I believe they mean it, I am unsure whether they say it in return because it seems like the right thing to do. I just mean that I wonder if they’d say it ever without me having said it first. I wonder whether that matters. It seems insincere if they only do it as a response, but I do believe that they mean it, at the time and at all other times. I wonder whether they’ve said it more to other partners.

I know they show their love and commitment in other ways. We have discussed their method of showing love and they are through actions instead of words. I know some might explain this as us both having different love languages. I don’t think I have ever been in a situation where my partner’s expression of love has differed so much from my own expectations.

I said it first and they did not return it. It was a couple of weeks later when I heard it back. I was OK with being the first and I was OK with letting it be what it is, for however long it was. In some way, not knowing if they loved me was kind of exciting, in a way that I just don’t know how to explain. There was still mystery there. They were still holding onto something about themselves that I was yet to discover. I had given them all of myself in my declaration and was vulnerable and that was powerful and scary and honest.

Time is up.