Read This If You’re Having Doubts About Your Relationship
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By Mélanie Berliet
When you love someone madly, the last thing you expect is to entertain doubts about the strength of your bond. Questioning seems contrary to commitment. Even if you do so privately, inside your own mind — in the midst of a sleepless night, while jogging, or showering — it can feel like a serious betrayal.
After reaching a certain point, you don’t want to question whether your partner’s values are aligned with yours enough to move forward, long past the lustful stage and into lasting romantic attachment, or whether you want the same things out of life in practical, realistic terms, or whether you can imagine parenting together and growing old alongside each other, eventually dying hand-in-hand as you’ve discussed so many times while caught in the throws of passion. You don’t want to let yourself ask these questions because it seems disrespectful to the person you love and the life you’ve built together so far.
But you must — without freaking out, if possible. Because if you don’t, those pesky questions will eat at you from the inside out until your heart is Swiss cheese, compromising your capacity to love.
No matter how strongly you feel about your significant other, it’s natural to feel confused about the relationship once in a while. You might doubt the fact that the person you love loves you as much as they claim to. You might doubt that your partner is worthy of the trust you’ve placed in them. You might wonder if you can make it as a couple long-term. Especially in matters of the heart, none of us is all-knowing.
Pangs of uncertainty can sprout up for no good reason, tickling your consciousness and begging for attention no matter how unjustified they may be. On other occasions, your gut may respond to blatant signs of trouble, or to subtle but significant cues. Unfortunately, it’s tough to know the difference. But it’s always worth trying to decipher the root cause of whatever doubts creep up. You can’t fear the outcome of addressing them too much to deny yourself the room to figure things out. However unpleasant the process may be, confronting uncertainty is the only way to return to a point of clarity.
