Is your partner not making you a priority? Here are a few things you can do, therapist suggests
In a relationship, we expect to be one of the priorities of the partner. While it is not important that we be the most important priority to them or vice versa, we should feel important, valued, heard and seen. “Feeling like you’re not a priority to your partner can be incredibly painful and difficult to manage. It can be hard to know the reason why this might be happening and why you feel this way. Sometimes, it might be straightforward and clear that your partner is really not making you or the relationship a priority, other times your partner might not be aware of the way you’re feeling, or they could be doing the best they can with the capacity they have,” wrote Therapist Lucille Shackleton.
Reflect: the first step to address this is to reflect on why we might be feeling like this. The influence of the current circumstances on them or the influence of fear on them may push them away from us. We need to learn to assess the situation.
Communicate: The next step is to communicate our emotions to the partner and express the way we are feeling. A good talk with the partner can help us to open the knots and address the situation in a healthy manner.
Listen: We should be active listeners in the relationship and try to understand the perspective of the partner. This will help us to understand them better.
Share our needs: instead of hoping the partner to know our needs and expectations, we should share our needs and explain to them what we expect from them.
Identify concerns: We should identify the specific concerns we have and try to communicate them to the partner as directly as possible.
Explore solutions: We should work as a team and explore solutions together and try to address the issues together, in a healthy manner.