I’ve been seeing this particular quote a lot on social media as of late, and I find it frustrating because it offers a wildly skewed perspective of what a healthy relationship and healthy communication means. Yes it’s nice to be surprised or feel cared for by your partner without having to ask them, but in saying “if they wanted to, they would”, you’re upholding an unfair standard against your partner and only making either yourself or the both of you feel bad over nothing.

There are many circumstances as to why your partner may not do something– just like how they might not know to do this, or that, in any other area of their life. We experience life through ups and downs and making mistakes. Therefore, a healthy relationship experience should uphold those same qualities.

Speaking from personal experience, I love my partner very much. We’ve been dating for 2.5 years and I truly care about her. But I also, for reasons I won’t get into here, have a lot of trouble paying attention and remembering things in my day-to-day life, regardless of what it is– school, relationships, self-care. It’s really difficult, and even though she gets frustrated with me sometimes, she understands because she experiences the same thing.

The fact of the matter is that in saying “if they wanted to, they would”, you’re creating a grudge to hold against your partner without them even giving you a valid reason to do so. If you want something, ask for it. Communicate. Let your partner know what your love language is and how you like to be cared for. Eventually, they’ll learn, and they’ll do things for you without you having to ask– and then sometimes, yes, you’ll still have to ask, because they don’t and won’t know everything. It’s important to treat them like a person, not a mind reader.

To go against the “negative meme” I found on Twitter above, I made a more positive one. I think it would probably have a harder time going viral than the image above, since, on the internet, people tend to feed off negativity, but the image I chose has been circulating around a lot so I think that that would help this meme’s situation a little bit more.