Sally McMullen

I've been dating my partner for seven years and he never says I love you.

What?

He says he doesn't need to because it's a given even though I say I'd like to hear it.

No, I'm laughing because Sal's shaking her head, not because I think this is funny.

When I say it to him, he doesn't say it back I've only heard it from him in the first year or so of our relationship At what point do I start to think that he actually just doesn't love me?

I don't need to say it all the time.

Yeah.

But I just, my counter to that is like, but you don't have to need to say it.

It's because you want to.

It's because you want to.

Yeah.

And I think it doesn't matter if you say I love you once a day, once like 10 times a day.

It's the fact that that's just what you want to say.

Like it doesn't make it mean any less if you say it once a year or a thousand times a day, which is the minimum for me really.

I dated a guy that really didn't say I love you that often and at the time I like brainwashed myself into thinking, oh no, it's just because like when he says it, he really means it.

And I'm like, but shouldn't you really mean it all the time?

And, like, maybe I'm just needy for that.

But it's like maybe, maybe.

But it's like, okay, then lock me up.

Like I want to hear my partner say.