“What do you need, love?”
It’s a simple enough question, but in all the chaos and swirl of life right now the answer was anything but simple.
I hear his question behind the words.
He wants to know how to show up for me, and what would make lessen the weight of all that is so heavy in my heart. He is asking how he can love me.
“I need uninterrupted time with you. Time without a ticking clock in the background. Time without distractions or deadlines.”
He acknowledged my request and said he would see what he could do.
…
Building our relationship with miles between us has been an interesting journey over the last three years. We began our exploration of one another and the possibility of us without any real expectations or intentions.
We wanted to explore together what it would mean to love with an open hand while practicing courageous honesty and being fearlessly vulnerable with one another. To keep things interesting, we added a global pandemic, major job changes, and tough challenges in each of our homes.
We have ebbed and flowed together through the passage of time. It turns out that our flexibility with each other may be our greatest strength. The seasons that we have shared have each brought changes to how and when we can connect.
Connecting by phone or text daily usually more than once is a treasure but those conversations often have life happening in the background. It would be impossible to guess how many unfinished, interrupted conversations we have shared, but I love the quick calls on his drive to the store or mine to the gym because it feels more like we are sharing in each other’s real life.
The interruptions or brevity of the conversations are not a big deal.
We find time to follow up on conversations that are important to us. However, those kinds of conversations are never the same as focused shared time. Given the busy lives that we both have apart from one another, it made me wonder if I may have been making a bigger request than it seemed.
…
A couple of weeks later, we have a long-awaited overnight date. When we arrived back at our room after dinner, he took his smartwatch off and placed it on the entryway desk next to his phone.
They stayed there until we went out for breakfast the next morning.
I usually am able to put my devices on a “do not disturb” setting when we are together, but his life has not usually provided that option. Having hours of time without interruption or distraction was incredible.
And just like that, he met me where I needed him.
I didn’t have to beg or plead. I didn’t need to remind him or cajole him. He didn’t need convincing. I didn’t have to justify my reasoning or define the parameters. All the things that I have always had to do in my other relationships to have any hope of having my needs met were completely unnecessary.
That would have been enough. He could have checked the box and felt great about meeting me in that space and moved on.
But he didn’t. In fact, something remarkable happened.
…
A week later, he calls late in the afternoon. He wasn’t driving anywhere or waiting for the next thing. He simply wanted to talk to me.
For the next hour, while I stretched across my bed, we talked about everything and nothing. When the call ended, my heart was full and overflowing.
His actions demonstrate that he understands that this matters to me. When he asked me, “What do you need?” he intends to meet me in those places to the best of his ability.
This is what it feels like to be loved — to be wanted as a part of another’s journey — to have them want to sincerely be a part of yours.
The gift of undistracted time. The gift of being seen and heard. The gift of being loved. Sometimes it really is just the smallest things like a watch and phone silenced or a lingering call that make the biggest difference.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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