You love your partner but do they truly love you back the way you deserve to be loved? Don’t ignore signs that they’re actually not as into you as they claim to be or as they should be. Here are 13 that should make you stop wasting your time and move on to find someone else.
- They don’t satisfy your mind. Satisfying your body and ensuring your pleasure in the bedroom is one thing, but what happens outside of the bedroom is even more important. Does your partner stimulate your mind? Can you have deep, intelligent conversations with them or are they all about what goes down in the bedroom? If there’s no connection when you have your clothes on, you’re better off alone.
- Romance isn’t part of their vocabulary. There’s big romance, like telling you how much they love you at the top of the Eiffel Tower or buying you five bouquets of roses. Those big acts of romance are great but they’re not going to happen often. It’s the little actions that say a lot about someone’s feelings for you because they happen in normal, everyday life. It can be something as simple as making you a cup of tea or buying your favorite chocolate when you’re having a tough day. Just little things that show you how much they care.
- They’re selfish and inconsiderate. Being chivalrous is great, but you know what’s even better? When your partner is thoughtful. Being thoughtful means thinking about your partner instead of yourself. That means remembering that you’re allergic to strawberries or that you don’t like the color purple. It means sending you a text message because they remembered it’s an important day at work for you. It’s about remembering you hate sitting in the middle of a movie theatre so they choose different seats. If your partner doesn’t do thoughtful things early on, it’s clear that you’re not on their mind.
- They’re not supportive. This is a biggie, but your partner’s lack of support might not be super obvious, so pay attention to the small hints that they don’t really have your back. For instance, if they seem to get a bit moody every time you get a promotion or achieve a goal, there’s a problem. What’s going on? Whatever the answer, that’s not a supportive partner and you deserve better.
- You never factor into their decisions, short or long-term. If your partner doesn’t consult with you before making big decisions, it’s probably because they don’t really care about how their choices affect you, especially since they don’t plan on being with you long-term. If you’re not included in their life plans, you’re renting out a relationship instead of investing in it.
- They leave you guessing and they like it that way. You don’t really know for sure what your partner feels for you and they seem to like it that way. Hmm. If it’s been weeks and months of this uncertainty, then things don’t look good. They should be clear about what they feel and you should feel good and confident about their love.
- You don’t feel safe with them. You don’t have to feel like your partner protects you, but it’s nice to feel safe and happy around them. If your partner gets high and then wants to drive you home or gets into fights with others when you’re with them, they’re not thinking about your safety. You should feel physically safe, yes, but emotionally too. You should be able to trust your partner with your feelings and not have them disregard them or use them against you.
- They constantly leave you wanting more. Sometimes you just get that niggling feeling that you’re not completely satisfied in the relationship. That feeling’s worth listening to because it’s your intuition telling you that something isn’t quite right. If you ignore it, you’ll end up feeling hopeless and depressed.
- They’re rude to others but good to you. If your partner seems to treat others like crap but they’re always good to you, you can’t really be happy about that. Sooner or later, that bad behavior’s going to come your way. It’s not good enough if your partner shows you respect if they’re not a good person in general.
- They want to change you. They tell you that you should dye your hair blonde or not wear pink. They tell you that you should lose weight or change your career. Screw that! Your partner should accept who you are and what you want out of your life. Giving you advice about your life that you didn’t ask for isn’t caring—it’s downright controlling and out of line.
- They keep you hidden away. Do your partner’s loved ones know about you? If your partner never invites you along to see their loved ones and doesn’t introduce you as their partner in public, they clearly want to keep your relationship under wraps. Same goes for if they always want to take you to dinner far across town, away from the places where they might bump into their friends.
- They criticize everything you do. You buy your partner a birthday gift and all he or she can say is, “I actually wanted something else.” They don’t like the way you do things, or their way is always better. Good luck dating someone like this long-term! You’ll just end up feeling useless. If they can’t appreciate you, they need to GTFO.
- They don’t fix your relationship problems. After a fight, you make up, but the problems don’t get resolved. Your partner never wants to talk about things. WTF? This causes the same old issues to resurface. Worse, if your partner doesn’t want to fix things, it’s clear that they don’t love you the way you should be loved. If they did, they’d want to keep working on the relationship. The love is gone. Shouldn’t you be gone too?