“do I miss them enough?”

read time: 7 min

Picture this:

You are taking a long weekend to go on vacation with your family or friends without your partner.

You hug them goodbye and say “I’ll miss you - wish you were coming with!”

And then you immediately question yourself:

• “Do I really wish they were coming?” Will I even miss them?”

• “Wait...how much “should” I miss them?”

• “What does it mean if I DON’T miss them “enough” or at all?

ANDDDD cue anxiety.

Has this happened to you before, or something similar?

If so, you’re not alone.

This fear of “not missing them enough” is something I used to experience frequently (especially when I did THREE YEARS of long distance with Nate), and something my clients and community ask me about all the time.

So let’s discuss where this fear likely stems from, why you may not miss your partner when you’re apart in the first place, and how to better manage this thought process.

Where this fear stems from:

Many of relationship anxiety’s common fears are a result of conditioning:

From family or friends.

From society at large.

From social media.

From romcoms and romance novels.

From all of the above, really, combined and subconsciously soaked in over time.

Somewhere along the line in your life, if you have the thought “do I miss them enough?” you must have learned that missing someone is a sign you care about them, and if you don’t, it means you don’t care enough.

Maybe you learned that you should be day-dreaming about the next time you see them.

Maybe you learned that you should want to be with them 24/7, 356.

Maybe you learned that you should never want alone time.

Whatever stories or beliefs you’ve picked up over time are likely contributing to this fear that “missing my partner more = loving my partner more.”

But what if it was really as simple as myth-busting all of the above beliefs?

You don’t need to day dream about the next time you will see your partner to be in love.

You don’t need to spend every waking minute together to be in love.

You get to have as much alone time as you desire and still be in love (within reason).

Sure, it’s fun sometimes to be in fantasy-mode and day-dreaming. Or so the movies and romance books claim.

But if you’ve been on my page for a while you have heard me talk about relationships transforming over time and becoming less “new” and “exciting” as you become more familiar.

If you need a reminder, check out one of my first blog posts ever, Dopamine.

Basically, in the beginning of a relationship, you may feel some of these nervous-excited feelings at the thought of the next time seeing the person because it’s new.

Fast forward a few weeks, months, or years into a relationship with someone and maybe you don’t spend as much time in anticipation mode, because, well, things are more predictable.

Fast forward a few weeks, months, or years into a relationship with someone and maybe you don’t spend as much time together because you each have individual priorities to attend to (and that’s perfectly okay!).

Fast forward a few weeks, months, or years into a relationship with someone and maybe you prioritize time re-connecting to yourself and taking space because it helps fill your own cup up (alone time is not bad!).

What I’m trying to say here is that we have been conditioned to believe that not missing someone is wrong or bad, and I’m here to tell you that isn’t objective truth.

We can choose whether we continue believing that, or not, and whether or not we can look for some gray area in the middle.

It doesn’t have to be “we miss someone” or “we don’t” — it can be situational, and missing someone may also depends on another factor, which I will discuss next:

Why you may not miss your partner when you’re apart in the first place:

I’m going to make a few assumptions in order to illustrate this point:

• the type of person who asks this question of “do I miss my partner enough?” has relationship anxiety

• having relationship anxiety causes you to flip-flop back and forth between being excited about being in the relationship and being in your head and worried about being in the relationship

• there is a subconscious assumption by experiencing relationship anxiety that “it’s because I am with the wrong person” (how do I know that? well, “if I don’t miss them enough, that means they’re not the one”, right?)

With these assumptions in mind, I want to throw out a couple potential reasons why you may not miss your partner when you’re away:

1 - You feel a sense of relief when you’re not with them in person because you are less confronted with the anxiety

AND/OR

2 - You are so in your head wondering if you miss them that you’re not even allowing yourself to immerse yourself in the moment you are in, and thus have the chance to miss them

Let me explain both further:

I remember when I was doing long distance with Nate, I would shift gears between being really excited to see him next and really worried if my anxiety would be present.

Similarly, when I would leave spending time with him I would be sad to leave while simultaneously breathing out a sigh of relief that I would not be hyper-focused on him and potential anxiety in person.

Now, mind you, I was up in my head A LOT during this time period.

As much as I knew I cared about Nate and how great of a person he was, I was still so afraid of the uncertainties of our relationship: how can I be CERTAIN we will work, CERTAIN that he’s the “right” person for me, etc.

So it’s no wonder that when I got some space and was alone at times, I would not always miss being around the person who at the time I thought was triggering all this anxiety.

I thought it was Nate who was responsible for me feeling this way (looking back, I see it all so clearly now for what it was: an anxious projection).

He’s not attractive enough to turn me on 24/7, he’s the one who needs to work on his manners, he’s the one who isn’t doing enough to make sure my anxiety is gone.

No, no, and no.

All of this was fear.

So perhaps when you are not with your partner in person and don’t miss them, it’s your anxious mind feeling a small sense of relief that you’re not in person with them confronting the anxiety head-on.

But that doesn’t mean when you’re apart, you’re not still up in your head worrying...

Which leads to the point that another reason you may not miss them is because you are so in your head wondering if you miss them that you’re not even allowing yourself to immerse yourself in the moment you are in, and thus have the chance to miss them.

Sound counterintuitive?

Well, let me put it this way:

“Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.” ~Chuang Tz

So, another analogy here could be: missing your partner is the absence of striving to miss your partner.

Okay, okay, maybe this is not 100% the same thing as the quote is trying to convey, but hear me out.

I often find that the moments when I genuinely miss Nate are moments when I am enjoying myself and wish he was there to enjoy something with me, or on the flip side if I am not enjoying myself as much because I wish he was there.

In both of those examples, I am actively present in whatever activity I am in and wishing he was there.

Yes, that involves some thinking, but it doesn’t necessarily involve ANALYZING.

Analyzing sounds more like:

“Would it be better if he was here, or not?”

“Should I feel more like I miss him, or not?”

Genuinely missing him may sound like:

“It would be nice if Nate was here right now” - period, end of story. No added layers.

Now that we’ve established the root of the fear that you don’t miss your partner enough and why you may not miss them in the first place, let’s end with talking about how to better manage this thought process so it doesn’t take hold over you.

Managing this thought process:

The next time the thoughts of “do I miss them enough?” or “if I don’t miss them, what does that mean?” come up, I have a handful of suggestions to manage the thoughts in a more helpful way.

• Remind yourself that “missing someone is a sign you love them more” is a belief not a truth. This may feel overly simple, but it’s an extremely important skill to be able to question and poke holes in your own belief systems.

• Experience, don’t analyze. When you’re analyzing how much you miss someone, you’re not fully participating in whatever experience you’re in away from the person. Learn to bring yourself back to the experience you’re in. This can be via mindfulness practices like tapping into your breathing or looking around you and noticing the sensory happenings (what can you see, touch, smell, hear).

• Detach from any additional meaning being added to if you miss them or not. Be an objective observer of your thoughts, not a subjective judge. You can notice if you miss someone or not without adding layers of meaning onto it. “I miss Nate” can simply be that. It doesn’t mean “I miss Nate, which means he’s right for me.” “I don’t miss Nate” equally doesn’t mean “I don’t miss Nate, which means he’s not right for me.”

• Detach from your partner. Before you get too worried, no I am not saying you have to leave a loving relationship, don’t worry. What I mean is that you and your partner are separate people. You are allowed to be away from them without thinking about them. You are allowed to enjoy your own experiences. You are allowed to be your own person. Detach from the need to constantly be thinking about your partner and relationship.

• Reconnect to yourself. Time away from your partner doesn’t need to only be thought of as time away from your partner. Time away from your partner is also time to connect to yourself. By worrying if you’re missing your partner, you’re indirectly saying your relationship with your partner is more important than the relationship to yourself or others (family, friends, community) who you may be with at the time. You may not think twice about spending time away from your partner if you think of it as time FOR YOU.

Try one or all of these the next time you find yourself asking “do I miss them enough?” and see what shifts...

If you would like support in transforming from feeling anxious to secure in your healthy relationship, I have a couple options available:

Deconstruct the Doubts, my digital course where I walk you through the information that changed my life completely and helped me finally understand why relationship anxiety happens and how to reduce it. You can start as soon as TODAY! Learn more and sign up here.

Private Coaching, a 12-week personalized program where I support you in ditching “stay or go?” mentality and confidently jumping two feet into your loving relationship. This is the last two weeks to begin working with me before SEPTEMBER! Learn more and apply here.