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Making Your Partner a Priority; Where Do You Want to Be?
Little acts of disconnection grow into patterns of disconnection.
“Where there’s a will there’s a way.”
That used to be a phrase my ex-wife used to use when complicating the matter of having sex. She would set out a series of conditions, mostly chores and requests that would make her feel loved, and if I would complete them before the kids got home from school… Well, then we might be able to fool around a bit. The pattern of behavior is known as conditional love. “I will love you when… I will love you if… I will not love you if you don’t…”
When you are in a relationship and chores become prioritized over simple kindness and affection, there’s a problem. But, one aspect of her challenge was correct. People make time, people save energy, people mostly do what they WANT to do. If your partner is starting to spend more time outside the relationship, make a note of it. If sex is becoming less frequent and more of an eye-rolling discussion (“Again? Can’t we just give it a rest?) then other things are being given priority in their life.
