6 Tips To Love Someone The Right Way

No one likes being smothered. There’s a thin line between showing affection and smothering someone.

You may not want to smother affection on your partner, but have you ever felt like your partner tries to push you away or looks for excuses to get away from you now and then? You may just be an unintentional smothering lover.

Firstly, expressing love and smothering affection is relative and subjective. What’s smothering to one partner could be unaffectionate to another. When you take time to fall in love slowly with each other, these are little things both of you can learn about each other and each other’s expectations when it comes to affection.

If you feel like you’re smothering your partner or if your partner ever tells you they need more space, here are 6 things you need to do to take the stress off the relationship.

# Don’t use love to control someone

Don’t expect an equal measure of love from your partner right from the start of the relationship. Love needs time to bloom. Do you say ‘I love you’ often to your sweetheart because you feel like saying it, or is it because you want to hear your lover say it back to you?

Don’t use love as an excuse to control your partner or arm-twist them into doing your bidding. When you shower affection in excess, just to test your lover’s feelings or expect something back in return later, that’s definitely smothering and something that’ll piss your partner off sooner than you think.

# Give your partner their space to grow

Spending time with each other can feel great. But even if you’re having the time of your life in your partner’s arms, learn to back away and give space now and then. You may not realize it, but at times, constantly having you around all the time may end up annoying your partner. The adage, absence makes the heart grow fonder, exists for a reason.

# Don’t always be available

Don’t always be available at your partner’s beck and call, especially if it’s a trivial matter. Do you ever skip work or put away something important for later when your lover asks you for something trivial, like meeting for coffee because they’re bored or helping them clean the house even though it’s not your turn until next week?

Two things will happen here. One, you’ll feel like you’re sacrificing something important to be with your lover. That’ll make you feel like a martyr who places love above anything else. And you’ll expect the same gesture back from your lover. Secondly, your partner will end up taking you for granted and expect the same preferential treatment all the time. Do you realize just how shaky this arrangement could turn out to be in the long run?

# Don’t constantly call them

Keeping in touch is acceptable. But expecting an update on their life every couple of hours is just obsessive. Unless your partner and you like staying in touch constantly, avoid this behavior.

This is especially noticeable when your partner’s out with their own friends. Do you call your partner often or sending i-miss-you texts when they’re with friends and you’re alone at home? You’re bored. Your partner’s having fun. You want attention. This is just another case of smothering and misusing love.

# Balance your romance

Learn to better your relationship with the perfect balance of love, sex and friendship. If you want to love someone the right way, both of you need to feel involved in each other’s lives in more aspects than just love or lust. Learn to be a friend, a confidante and everything else. By doing this, you’ll be able to avoid feeling jealous of anyone else who gets close to your partner as a friend.

# Keep it exciting

Make your partner want more all the time. Be innovative and look for new ways to keep things exciting in love. Instead of forcing your partner to treat you better or like a princess all the time, do something that’ll inevitably make your partner treat you better. Almost always, we ask why our partners have become boring but we don’t realize just how boring we’ve become ourselves.