Are you overdoing your love for your partner? If you are not careful, love can turn into smothering and scare your partner away.
Look for the danger signals in your relationship:
Selfish v/s generous When you smother your partner, you’re not considering the other person’s feelings. You feel like you’re showing love but, you need to step back and see if you’re being motivated by your own insecurity about the relationship or your own fears about losing this person. Is this more of selfishness than generosity of emotions?
Demanding v/s patient Do you constantly demand attention along with answers about the future? If you need constant and repeated proof of their commitment level or feelings for you, then this is not love. You need to go with the flow and let the relationship evolve over time.
You tell them what to do v/s autonomy You may feel that you are suggesting things to them for their own good but chances are you are actually forcing your decisions on them. Telling them who they should and shouldn’t spend time with, or the decisions that they should make is not love. It’s smothering. Real love allows your partner the freedom to be who they are. After all, isn’t this the person who you have fallen for? Why change them?
Jealousy and suspicion v/s trust A certain amount of insecurity is understandable in the initial stages of a relationship. However, if it never gets comfortable, even after some time, then there’s something wrong. Are you the type that demands answers to the “Where were you?”, would want to know their every other contact and their communication with others, their schedule and find yourself checking on them often? If so, then chances are that you are smothering them. A healthy relationship ought to be based on trust.
Respect v/s disrespect If you disrespect the person, their choices in life and their decisions made, then you don’t really love them despite your declarations. The foremost ingredient of real love is respect for your partner. In real love, years of familiarity also need not take away the core feeling of utmost respect that you have for their personality, their values and beliefs.
Space v/s oppression Are you giving your partner their space? Both emotional and personal? Texting too much, calling too often and wanting to meet them all the time, will make you a pest, not an ardent lover. It will oppress and can end up making the relationship feel like a prison to your partner. True love frees the other to behave and love the way they choose.
This is not to say that couples should not be close. But in a smothering type of relationship, there is not enough space to grow for both the partners.
Are we saying couples should not be close? No. We’re saying couples in such a relationship will start to feel uncomfortable and unfulfilled and one of the partners starting to feel trapped and suffocated, will eventually walk away. An ideal relationship gives both the partners enough space to grow and live as separate individuals, while being together in harmony and love. For a relationship to be successful both partners can work towards that which brings happiness, fulfillment and peace.
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