“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” ~Simone Weil
This morning I was busy French pressing coffee for my husband and me. Everything was going great; I was happily humming along, looking forward to starting my day. My lovely husband came up behind me and bear hugged me gently.
Now, I’ll admit that I don’t usually take this well when I’m in the middle of something. If I’m cooking (which I’m particularly serious about), I’ve been known to push him away and say something along the lines of “I’m cooking! Back!”
This is not sensitive or caring. It’s more of a “get-off-me-I’m-working” reaction that I’ve been working on.
To my husband’s credit, he usually responds fine and continues about his business seemingly undeterred from future affection. I apologize later, and he doesn’t seem to take offense.
After an interaction like this, I feel embarrassed and ashamed of how I’ve responded to his attempts at closeness. I worry that if I keep pushing him away, eventually he’ll just stay away for good. The very idea itself makes me feel sad and repentant.
Today, however, when he came over and hugged me from behind, I had enough good sense not to push him away.
I took the opportunity for some bonding time with him, which made my morning. I actually had to have the conscious thought that I should stop the urge to push him away and instead be receptive.
Instead of getting caught up in what I was doing, I stopped myself and let him foster closeness between us.
Today, I was receptive.
Today, I let myself get swept up in the moment instead of worrying about the coffee getting cold, or burning dinner, or the myriad of other little nagging things that seem more important in the sweet little moments like this.
My priorities are woefully out of whack if I think that preventing my coffee from getting cold is more important than connecting with someone who isn’t afraid to come over to me for the 4,345 time when I’m in the middle of something, even though he knows he’s likely to get the cold shoulder.
What if one day he gives up? I’ll admit, I probably would have given up already if I were him. It’s embarrassing to admit that my skin isn’t nearly as thick as his has been when it comes to affection.
In fact, so often, haven’t I shown through my actions that a deeper connection was not my priority?
That admission stings. If I’m really honest, in the past, a lack of mindfulness about how I handle affection has led me to prioritize tons of things above my relationships. I have allowed things of little importance to often take priority over connecting with the people who I love most.
How often do we push our partners away and refuse to connect without quite seeing it that way? How often do we reject their advances, when if we thought about it, we actually desire more closeness? How long do we have before we push the other person away forever, only to wonder later what went wrong?
Of course, I never consciously intend to make my partner feel rejected, but how often do I reject him anyway, bumbling through our life together? How often could I be nicer, or less stressed, or more receptive?
How often do the people in our lives who are most important to us suffer because we are too busy, or too clueless to notice?
No matter what the reason is, what if we’re sacrificing the everyday events that have lasting potential to bring us closer?
I can do big things that are meant to connect with my partner. For example, I can suggest and plan out a weekly date nights, but if I’m downright cold and repellant in the tender, everyday moments that are his idea, pretty soon, I will drive away the very connection that I truly long for.
It won’t matter if we try to formally “plan” times to be affectionate or if I make sure to approach him often on my own terms.
What if we’re doing this not just with our intimate partners, but also with the rest of the important people in our lives? What if we’re providing negative reinforcement when, if we were more conscious of it, we would actually want to allow more closeness?
It’s so common to take the closest relationships in our lives for granted. That’s why it’s so vitally important to take the time to nurture the little connections that we have with each other, every day. In this way, love is a practice, just like connection takes practice.
It’s the small things, once again, that truly matter with someone we love. It’s taking the time to listen to them when we’re tired and would rather do something else. It’s not shutting them down when they show us little acts of affection. It’s receptivity and openness to connection, as well as getting our priorities straight.
Since I’ve been struggling to change this reluctance to connect on someone else’s terms, here are four things that I’ve learned help to bring someone closer in the moment.
1. Awareness.
Notice the ways, both small and large, in which others try to create connections with you. If we wait for them to approach us perfectly or in the exact moments we’re thinking about it, we miss so much.
2. Receptivity.
Being aware is important, but so is being receptive to a connection. If we acknowledge and then open ourselves to connecting with others, it’s clearly going to foster more connection than if we are aware but not receptive (like my cooking example above).
Being receptive involves staying aware of the greater good in our most important relationships, namely saying “yes” to more love, more connection, and more closeness from others. It’s not turning down the hug or pushing someone away in the moment. It’s apologizing if we fail at these things.
3. Appreciation.
Appreciation is key to positively reinforcing someone’s attempts to get closer to us. If I allow myself to be selfish or distracted and fail to positively acknowledge my partner’s attempts to connect with me, I’m not only pushing him away in that moment, but I’m effectively blocking future connection.
If I don’t nurture the connections that matter the most to me, I won’t have connections with the people I love. That is the inevitable, preventable, awful consequence of failing to provide positive reinforcement.
This is about recognizing the little things, with heartfelt thank you’s and big hugs. It’s having an eye toward acknowledging people’s efforts, and providing them with a positive experience when they interact with me.
4. Reciprocity.
Rather than saving up our affection and positive attention for when we’re really feeling it (or say, date night), maybe it’s better to make a practice of reciprocating our partner’s affections even when we’re tired, distracted, or not quite interested.
Giving them the gift of our attention is such a strong tool for nurturing them and the relationship that it shouldn’t be saved for the exact, right moment when we feel like sharing our affections. Maybe it’s more effective to resolve to share and connect with the people we care about whenever they reach out to us.
And… try not to push your spouse away when they’re happily giving you a bear hug.
Couple hugging image via Shutterstock

About Elizabeth Stone
Elizabeth Stone is an author and relationship coach obsessed with helping people improve their relationships. After 10 hilarious years of navigating the dating world, she has settled down in Vegas with her sweet fiancée and unruly dog. She writes at WhyMenLeave.net.
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This is so beautiful!! Thanks for putting this out there 🙂
I really enjoyed this read. Thank you so much for the
posting. It stirred up some very powerful emotions in me that 5 years ago I
wouldn’t have known how to process. Because of the way I was raised I’ve had
problems with intimacy and closeness. I’ve always yearned for it but then
pushed it away. And when I had it, I took it for granted or as you say
“was way too busy”. I’m so embarrassed that I thought so little of
the people in my life and that I pushed them away and didn’t take the time to
appreciate them. Today though, I have a wonderful partner who is very
affectionate and I make it a priority to tell him every day how much I love him
and how much I appreciate him being in my life. I’m filled with more love and
joy than I ever knew possible and one of the best things I ever did was get
grateful. I love being intimate and I cherish every moment. Again, thank you
for sharing with us your experience and wisdom. Xoxo
I really like #4 🙂 My boyfriend tells me often how much he appreciates that, because he notices!
Thanks for posting this…a few days ago I broke up with my 4 year gf, simply because some of the stuff she does has been irritating to me, while she has been a caring, loving person and has always looked out for me… I now know that I’ve been wrong because Im insecure, and had not taken the time to give her back all the love she has given me… I will try to fix it, wish me luck! 🙂
Thanks so much for your kind words Desiree. I really appreciate it.
Best of luck to you Esteban! Thanks for your comment.
Thanks Rose! 🙂
Thanks for your comment DB 🙂
I can really relate to this. I do the exact same thing. My significant other loves to sneak up behind me when I’m cooking to give me a little affection, and I react the same way you did. Part of me feels bad for pushing him away, and part of me is like, “Just let me cook dinner!” 🙂 Thanks for the article. I’ll try to implement some of your suggestions.
Thanks so much for your comment Holly, happens to me every day, trying to react better too 🙂
This article just open up myself to whole new perceptive. Thank you so much you are a great author.
This is really quite excellent, and it coincidentally comes at a time when I’m thinking about the relationship between myself and my SO. We’re currently doing the long distance thing, which probably makes this even more important since physical closeness is so hard to come by.
Thanks for the though-provoking words, i’m definitely going to save this article.
Thanks TK, I really appreciate your comment.
You’re so very welcome Amanda, I’m glad you got something from it.
How about a similar article from your husbands point of view? My girlfriend acts similarly to you, but unlike your husband all the rejection is wearing me down to the point where I don’t really know if I care any more. In past relationships, not putting forth the effort to connect and communicate has eroded them, so this time around I’m giving it a shot. But, when my girlfriend would rather wash dishes than talk to me on the phone, it makes me think my effort is misplaced.
Thanks for posting such a worth to appreciate post..learnt alot of it.most of the times in the era of competition we almost forget about the day we live in and thinking about tomorrow to make it beautiful,but in such a fasion every tommorrow comes as today.we avoid tini things in the most important relations what if we have achieved,we might have get all the peace of mind and happiness of life.but we grow older and older,time draws a line on our face each year,joints erodes,special scenses get poor at their work,kidneys function lowers to half,cholestrole level get at the high to make us near to die of heart attack and till we never catch that tommorrow for what we passed every today tense.there then we rewind the moment passed and just aaaahhhh but it never works then…
thanks for your comment!
what do I do If my wife feels i have no passion and is done trying with me. I want to make this better.
It´s just like you said it “It’s the small things […] that truly matter with someone we love” the simple and daily acts are the ones that show how much we love and care for out partner. I really liked this post. Thanks for sharing 😀
I’m with you on this, show affection on a long distance relationship it’s tough. But at the same time may help you to pay more attention and to create a deeper connection.
Thank you!
Hi Matthew, so sorry to hear you’re going through this. Since the only person you ultimately have control over is yourself, maybe focus on making yourself as genuinely happy as you can be. Reignite your interests in the things you love that maybe have fallen by the wayside as time has worn on. Try your hardest to transform your life into one you love, regardless of your wife’s choices.
What a great post! It takes maturity and awareness to realize and admit this dilemma. The girl I really care about often does this as well, and it helps to see another woman’s perspective – that you really do care and you often just get caught up in what you are doing at the moment. When my GF first started doing this to me, I was a little caught off guard. I’m much more affectionate than she is, so naturally I began to wonder if the dynamics of the relationship was changing and she wasn’t as interested as I was. Thankfully, I was patient enough to realize that it had nothing to do with me personally. It’s nice to see there are other similar situations out there that reveal it’s not really us, and that you guys really don’t want to lose us. 🙂
With my patience, as in the case of your husband, came some good results. When I was able to walk away without scolding her for her lack of affection, over time I guess she begin to feel a little guilt like you did and she started responding to my affection. But I’ll admit, it took a lot of patience and some conscious effort on my part too. In fact, all the time and changes I put into the relationship inspired a pretty length blog post on how to receive more love myself. Thanks, Elizabeth, for writing this post to show other woman what is more important, and to give greater confidence to guys like myself not to give up or take it personally.