ROMANTIC

I’m not going to lie, I have never been in a real relationship, so I guess I can’t really relate to how “Needy or Not” feels in the advice column above, but I have seen enough relationships in my life that I believe I have a decent understanding of them.

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I’m going to use my seventeen-year-old sister and her boyfriend as an example of a romantic relationship in my life. My sister has attachment issues: she’s struggled with separation anxiety for her whole life which makes it hard for her to form a true connection with others as she is scared that they will leave. She almost didn’t date her boyfriend because she was too scared to commit. However, they made it official and have been dating for about a year and a half now. Whenever they are together, that’s when I can tell that my sister is the happiest. She’s in her purest form: relaxed, goofy, loving, and just happy. One problem they face, though, is that they’re both insanely busy. My sister goes to school during the day and spends her nights dancing. Her boyfriend also goes to school during the day and in the evenings, he’s either playing football or baseball. Because of this, it means that they only have the weekends to see each other. My sister is willing to work her weekend around whenever her boyfriend is free, but he wouldn’t do the same. Sometimes, he is genuinely busy and doesn’t have time to spend with my sister. She doesn’t quite understand that and gets upset, though she’ll get to see him soon enough.

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I think it’s normal for couples to not spend every moment together. I can understand the want to see those you love, but spending time apart should be normalized. I don’t believe that one should simply break up with their significant other for being a busy person unless you bring it up to them and they actively don’t do anything to make it better. If it greatly affects your relationship and how you feel about your significant other, then there isn’t much of a point to stay in that relationship. You need to make sure that your needs are met and if they are not, it’s time to sit your partner down to talk about it and seriously reconsider the relationship.

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However, it’s not right to automatically bash the other person for being genuinely busy, like the advice column writer did above. She was so quick to assume that the man in question was a manipulator and unfit to be a father. It’s so hard to gather enough information from advice columns to properly address the situation, yet the advice giver believes that she knew best and felt fit to judge that man. The shared vocabulary here shows that our significant others should not be deemed manipulative if they do not have manipulative tendencies, like the boyfriend in the column did not. Just because my sister’s boyfriend doesn’t always have time for her, that doesn’t make him manipulative. It simply means he is busy. Those in romantic relationships sometimes assume too quickly and automatically think the worst, allowing them to put a negative label on their significant other.