Talking About Our Future...

Question: Okay I need help on this. Me and my girlfriend just celebrated our 7 month anniversary, and I constantly ask questions like “Do you wanna be with me?” or “Do you love me?” Just questions that are about our future and stuff. And I ask constantly because I feel like if I don’t ask then she may not want all that. But she tells me that we don’t have to ask 24/7, we know it’s there, and that I should know the answers to all those questions. I know all the answers, but I still ask. I know we both love each other. I know the answers to these questions, and I’m always right; she confirms it. I just need some help or advice on how to fix this. Me and her are very committed to this relationship.

Response: First of all, I want to thank you for writing in with your question. It took guts, and I applaud you for wanting to put in the work to make your relationship be a success. It is super common to have moments throughout the relationship where one or the other of you will feel like you need reassurance that everything is in fact okay, that you are loved, that the other person is happy, etc. Feeling the need for that verbal confirmation, and the urge to continue asking even though you “know” the answer is a sign that you are not feeling completely secure in the relationship. This is important to process on a personal “self-work” kind of level, as well as out loud with your girlfriend. A good place to start is by asking yourself some questions. What is it that makes you feel like you need to ask? What would need to change in order for you to feel secure in your knowledge of the answers and not have to ask the questions constantly to confirm? Does it feel like the more you ask, the more she doesn’t want you to ask? Does that make you feel hurt and misunderstood? Do you wish she would just tell you without you having to ask?

Are you feeling this need to “ask” constantly because you’re the type of person who says what’s on your mind/heart, but your girlfriend plays her cards a little closer to her chest and doesn’t verbalize how she’s feeling very often? If this is the case, it could be helpful to communicate this fact to her, and explain that you ask her to confirm her feelings because if you were in her shoes, you could vocalize things more, and so you are assuming that since she’s not, she must not feel those things. This is called “projecting” and can be a dangerous thing to do in relationships. Everyone is different, and we all have different needs and styles of communicating, love languages, etc. The best way to show love in a relationship is to find out what ways of showing love mean the most to the other person, and show love in those ways. We want to avoid projecting, aka assuming that showing them love in the way we would want to be loved, will make them feel loved. It’s a bit confusing to type out here, so I hope you’re still tracking with me.

Basically it sounds like it’s possible that one of your primary love languages is words of affirmation. In other words, it means a lot to you when your girlfriend says out loud how much she loves and cares for you, talks about your futures together, and how happy she is in the relationship. This makes you feel secure, loved, and safe in your relationship.

It sounds like your girlfriend has other primary love languages, and that words of affirmation is a foreign or even uncomfortable way for her to show her love. The more you ask her, the more she resists saying it out loud, even saying explicitly that you shouldn’t be constantly asking her. I’m guessing that just like you, she’s just figuring out the whole relationship thing. She’s probably not trying to make you feel unloved; rather the opposite. It’s possible she’s feeling equally as frustrated and misunderstood because she doesn’t get why you keep asking her, and maybe she also has needs that aren’t being met or ways she would like to be shown love that aren’t happening right now.

Ya’ll aren’t speaking each other’s love languages; you’re each speaking your own and hoping the other person understands. It’s just as if you were speaking Spanish and she was speaking English and you were both saying “I love you,” but neither of you could understand the other, and you can’t figure out why she isn’t saying it back. But she is! She’s saying it in a language you don’t speak.

There’s some misunderstandings out there about how compatibility relates to love languages. So I want you to know that just because your primary love languages may not be the same, it doesn’t mean you can’t be happy in a relationship together. The key here is to love not as you want to be loved, but as you know will mean the most to the other person. The first step in learning how to do this is to sit down together and figure out what your love languages are. It’s actually kind of fun, and she’ll probably be excited to learn more about herself and you. Here’s a link to read more about it and take the quiz: https://www.5lovelanguages.com/

Once you’ve figured out what each other’s love languages are, you can learn how to start “speaking” the other person’s language and you’ll find yourself both happy and secure/confident in your relationship. For example, once your girlfriend learns that it means a lot to you to hear words of affirmation from her, she can consciously make an effort to show you love in that way. Just like learning a new language, it may feel like it takes a lot of effort at the beginning, but soon you’ll both become “fluent” and showing each other love in the way that the other person can “hear” it will become second nature. It’s not as though she’s manufacturing or faking the feelings, she will just be learning how to tell them to you in a way that you can hear them.

The same will be true for you. You’ll have to learn her love languages and then when you want her to feel loved, realize that it may mean more to show her love in a different way than what you would normally default to. Being intentional in this way will be so worth the learning curve, take my word for it.

Thanks again for writing in. I hope this helps you both as you strive to learn more about yourselves and each other.