We can spend a lot of time in relationships to which we are are ostensibly committed wondering, maybe with a fair amount of anxiety: do they love me?
Is this solid?
Might it all suddenly end?
But perhaps less time asking the more salient question: what can I do to help this valued relationship endure?
We can fall into an error of seeing love as a passive mysterious gift that we are in no position to generate, direct or guarantee, rather than conceiving of it as an emotion that for the most part flows fairly logically, steadily and naturally on from things that we are in a position either to do or not do.
And, to come to the central thesis, love tends to be a consequence of a partner feeling cared for and heard— in the way they have almost certainly frequently signalled to us that they need to feel, in order to be inwardly assured that they are in safe and tender hands (to hazard a generalisation: most people tend to signal their emotional requirements pretty directly, if we are in the mood to listen) .
In other words, there is much we can choose to do — or not do — (right now, today) in order to weaken or strengthen our loves.
We are for the most part actives agents, not passive victimised spectators.
The other's love should — under normal circumstances — be thought of as a predictable reward rather than a random benediction.
There are surely cases where people are keen to maintain a relationship but are then left 'for no reason' that they could ever have guessed at or influenced (normally by people deeply and secretly ambivalent around the terrors of commitment) .
