Stop Trying to Feel so Connected to Your Partner

Intimacy, attunement, emotional responsiveness: The language varies, but the ideal remains much the same. You should feel deeply known by your partner and connected at all times. You should understand each other, share values, regulate your distress together, and strive to be fully seen.

Connection has become one of the main ways we judge a relationship. You are encouraged to protect it, cultivate it, discuss it, and work hard to recover it. Sometimes you might even wonder if you should leave and seek it elsewhere.

Only connect?

Of course connection matters. But a good relationship cannot be a continuous series of emotionally charged encounters. A beautiful sunset is a pleasure, but you cannot sensibly expect one every evening. The trouble begins when connection becomes a constant requirement or the yardstick by which you measure everything else.

In any long-term relationship, there will be times when you feel less close to one another. A new job might mean work becomes all-consuming for a while. One of you might become ill or need to care for a relative. Money may be tight. And when you’re raising children, there are times when your entire relationship seems to consist mainly of passing the baton of shared childcare.

There is a world of difference, though, between a relationship that feels short of warmth at present and one in which warmth has gone for good. Treating every lapse as proof that the relationship is virtually over is the equivalent of assuming the garden is dead in February.

Some attempts to correct the problem can make it worse, too. Couples are often advised to devote time and effort to monitoring and restoring connection, so they book date nights, arrange a weekend in an expensive hotel, or schedule regular conversations about how close they feel.

Those efforts are not wrong. Time together can help. So can an honest conversation about what you miss. But connection is a bit like sleep—you can darken the room and put away your phone, but you cannot force it. The relationship industry is keen on promoting (and selling) card games, questions, and exercises designed to bring couples closer. Some are useful. But connection is usually a byproduct of spending time together and treating each other well. Constantly checking whether you feel it can suffocate a relationship as readily as it revives one.

I want it all

The pressure to feel connected all the time grows when we expect one relationship to meet nearly all our emotional needs. We monitor connection so anxiously because we have made our romantic relationships responsible for too much.

As psychologist Eli Finkel says, many of us now look to our relationships for personal growth and self-expression, not just for companionship and support. He calls this the all-or-nothing relationship, and it’s easy to come away with the impression that relationships built around the more modest goals of companionship, sex, and shared family life somehow fall short.

But this hierarchy is not justified. A relationship centred on loyalty, kindness, and shared childcare is not necessarily an incomplete version of something grander. Many people neither want nor need to continually assess how close they feel to their partner, let alone make constant connection their goal.

A more realistic stance can work better. Adjusting expectations does not mean giving up on your relationship—it’s a sign of maturity to accept that your partner has limits, just as you do. It leaves room for other people, too: A friend may understand the pressures of your work better, or you might prefer to talk politics with a colleague or to share a particular sense of humour with a sibling.

These connections don’t expose a hole in your relationship; they help protect it. Seeking everything from one person is risky—if they become the sole source of intimacy, stimulation, reassurance, and recognition, every time they fall short, it feels like a serious failure.

Most of us want to feel understood and cared for by a partner. But you also need to manage some feelings for yourself: to notice when you feel disconnected or disappointed and resist treating those moments as evidence that the relationship is in trouble. Resilience is not emotional withdrawal.

The wonderful everyday

Ordinary dissatisfactions are the entry price for sharing a life with somebody. The school run is sometimes stressful. There are bills to pay and disagreements about dinner. It’s annoying when your partner leaves wet towels on the bed or gets stuck at work, but it isn’t earth-shattering. You don’t have to enjoy these times, but neither are they a sign that the relationship is in trouble. Sometimes patience and understanding are what’s called for.

At other times, the ordinary stuff is lovely because someone is alongside you for the ride. They know what sort of day you’ve had and what your boss is like. They tease you when you’re taking yourself too seriously but know when to stop joking and put an arm around you. You both complain about the traffic or the neighbour’s dog. You share the small dramas of each other’s lives, know what gets under each other’s skin, and enjoy each other’s company.

When you feel less close, before wondering about the future of the relationship, ask how you treat each other. Are you still kind? Can you appreciate what is going well, listen when something matters to the other person, and put things right when you get them wrong? Moments of connection are worth treasuring, but they come and go. They are not the unit by which love should be measured. How you behave when you don’t feel especially close tells you more about whether you’re going through a hard season or the relationship has run its course.

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