“Are you saying that a man has to love you the way you want him to love you or you feel as if you can’t commit?… If you don’t say, and you think you know the outcome before you get there, your relationship fails anyway.
Committing to love another person isn’t always pleasant, is often self-sacrificing, and I want to feel that both my partner and I are mutually ready for that.Īfter I share all this with Ivankovich, she wonders if I’m sabotaging my relationships before they have a chance to advance by way of sharing vulnerable feelings like love, and expectations like commitment. Historically, I’ve been pretty commitment-shy in romantic relationships, not because I fear it, but probably because I take it very seriously. I may have felt love for him, and he may have felt love for me, but perhaps I didn’t believe the verb would carry on past the noun. Take my recent ex, for example, who would frequently forget about scheduled phone calls or prioritize me differently than I would have hoped. When I think of the last few guys I’ve dated, the consistency wasn’t always there. Instead, “love” feels like a word I need to protect - in part because I believe it’s more than a feeling it’s a choice that needs to be made consistently.
And while I’ve often seen friends use the word “love” very quickly in relationships, I can’t fathom myself doing that. I typically start forecasting the future after only a few months, or even weeks. I often fall in love with men who are similar to me: ambitious, passionate, focused on careers and goals that have high potential to pull us apart. I don’t personally fear becoming a “we,” but I do fear the other person will not want it as much as I do. Each person, while interested in being a couple, is still extremely independent. “But modern relationships are difficult to traverse. “Longevity has always been the hallmark of successful relationships, and many still hope that,” Ivankovich says. There’s a part of me that thinks I’m always searching for signs someone will leave before they actually do. If I can predict outcomes, I can save myself pain. We ultimately did get back together - he said he ended things out of fear and I believed him - but I hated that I hadn’t seen his reaction coming. My first boyfriend told me he was falling in love with me, and a few weeks later, we exchanged the words for real. “There is such profound concern with being fiercely independent today, and saying ‘I love you’ makes you vulnerable,” she says. She agreed there are probably a few factors contributing to my verbal block, like a fear of rejection, for instance, even if I did feel “safe” in my relationship. I asked Karla Ivankovich, PhD, a clinical counselor at OnePatient Global Health, to explore this subject with me. Or so I think it should, in an ideal world. Usually, saying “I love you” means you’re all in. You usually don’t break up with someone you just started to love you can’t back away from that word. There’s something about saying those three little words that marks a transition in your relationship once you say it once, you’re expected to keep saying it. The simplest answer, I’m afraid to admit, is that I’m nervous about what comes after. Did I not really love him? That doesn’t feel like it either I believe love is often felt before it’s said. Did I think he didn’t care? No, he was emotive and affirming, and I felt safe. Was it because he didn’t say it first? I don’t think I subscribe to any rules around that, gendered or otherwise. When I try to unpack my hesitation, I find only a tangled web of not-quite-right theories. I couldn’t say it when he laid his head on my chest the last night of my week-long stay in California, nor when he actually listened to me after a serious discussion we had about relationship needs. After my last relationship ended, I had a revelation: Despite feeling love for my partner and - I think, anyway - showing love, I could not say, “I love you.” Not when he flew across the country for my birthday, nor when we talked under the starlight at an AirBnB in the middle of a Redwood forest.
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