Your Partner and Other Most Valued Relationships Require the Most Attention

When the year started, I told myself that I’m gonna focus on continuously improving myself because I’m already happy and everything else seemed to be ok…or so I thought.

I had a call from my uncle (who I see as an older brother), wondering why I don’t bother giving him a call once in a while. Another instance was when I got a text from my cousin wondering if I’m still alive because I never bothered saying hi. Then, my partner, whom I thought knew how much I loved her, doesn’t feel as loved anymore as when we were 2 or 3 years in our relationship.

This took me by surprise — but it shouldn’t be.

It was bound to happen with the way I’m treating my relationship with them.

I became too busy doing my own thing. In my mind, nothing can happen in the world that would change the way I feel towards them. I assumed they realize that too. However, that assumption is flawed because there’s nothing to assume — I’ve gone radio silent on them.

Whatever intention I have, regardless of how noble it is, is useless if it isn’t backed by my actions.
The conflict between my values and my actions led to the slow disintegration of my most valued relationships. I tell myself, “I value family over anything”, but most of the time, my headspace is filled with thoughts about my side projects and my 9–5 job.

Mindlessly doing my own thing robbed me of the attention I had for them.

But despite my dismissive behaviour, I’m very grateful that they are still there. I’m super lucky because they care enough to continuously give me a chance to redeem myself. However, I don’t want to abuse their kindness.

That’s exactly why I’m shifting my focus this year to relationship maintenance.

Your closest relationships didn’t happen in an instant.

The time it took for the relationship to be where they are at today took a long time. The older the relationship is, the harder it is to maintain. Often, because they are so old, we treat them like a monument — something you establish and hope they stay there forever. Acting and thinking that way is a sign that complacency managed to sneak into our relationship, and it starts to slowly kill it like cancer.

The whole process goes unnoticed because we become too comfortable that nothing will destroy the bond we have with them, especially if it’s a relationship that took years to build. But what we don’t realize is that even when the relationship is already strong, it doesn’t mean that our lack of attention has no effect on them.

This is what causes relationships to slowly drift apart.

Life can instantly take them away from you (as much as it can take you away from them).

If I don’t act now, I could lose them altogether. But before any of that happens, I wanted to make sure I’ve done everything I could to preserve whatever we have. But it has to start now, not tomorrow.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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