soleil-moon-bye:

isanah:

hundondestiny:

I really hate how “your partner shouldn’t be a psychic” has evolved into “you cannot expect your partner to be intuitive to your needs or wants at all” because that’s… quite frankly ugly and a really good way to make your relationship feel like a chore. 

I pay attention to the things my partners like and Store That™ in my little brainspace until it becomes useful. My bf likes tea. We were cleaning out an office full of stuff yesterday and they had some tea leftover they would’ve thrown out, so I took it home to him. Wow! He didn’t tell me he needed or wanted that, but he appreciated it because it’s something he likes.

Not everything has to be some grand gesture to show your s/o that you’re into them and you’re paying attention to them. I recall someone saying they wrote down things about their S/O and their interests so they could look back and remind themselves since their memory sucked. Things like that matter.

And I think it’s really cruel to tell people, and especially women who this type of shit is always put towards, that they aren’t allowed to want romance or spontaneity because it’s an “unreasonable” expectation. It really isn’t. Healthy communication does not inherently mean constant hand-holding. 

This is really important: it’s one thing to read minds, and it’s another to try to consider your partner’s wants and needs. They’re at very different places, and we need to know that.

I had a huge fight on Tumblr a couple years back with some girl who insisted that you MUST COMMUNICATE every SINGLE DETAIL about how you want your relationship to go, or else you can’t blame your partner for being a self-centered cheating douchebag. Because communication!!1, etc.

Don’t get me wrong, good, solid, comprehensive communication is key. But communication gets so idealized, especially among people who may not have a lot of experience with relationships (not even romantic relationships necessarily, this also applies in full to familial relationships and friendships) to the point that most people don’t realize how impossible it is to set down the ground rules of a relationship, rules which are to be applicable to every situation, every nuance to a situation, indefinitely until the end of times or the end of the relationship, whichever comes first

Not to mention how absolutely taxing it is, usually to women in relationships with men, to take on the emotional labor of reminding men that we want to be treated like human people, and not like the Girlfriend Thing. Which, if you’ve ever been in a relationship to a man, no matter how kind and respectful he was, you know that this is a concern that comes up. Add this to the fact that women are not socialized to verbalize discomfort, especially not to men, and the demands that you COMMUNICATE basic shit become herculean.

TL;DR, communication is important!! But there is definitely an unspoken set of ground rules of How to Be a Considerate Partner and if you don’t have those down yet, you might not be ready for a relationship