A patient I’ll call Eugene told me something a few weeks ago that stuck with me: “I keep telling myself I don’t need this. Then I check my phone every ten minutes hoping she texted back.” He wasn’t being dramatic. He was describing something a lot of people live with quietly — why do I need constant reassurance from someone I’m still getting to know, or even someone I’ve been with for years?
The honest answer usually isn’t about the person at all. It’s about what you’re asking their response to do for you. If a text back means you’re okay, and silence means something’s wrong, that text has been handed a job no message was ever built to carry.
Feelings of loneliness in a relationship often sit underneath this pattern, even when the relationship itself is going fine. Loneliness isn’t always an accurate read on your circumstances — you can be with someone and still feel it. What it actually gives you is information about your own experience of connection. And when that gap shows up, it’s natural to reach toward someone to close it. The trouble starts when reaching turns into needing an answer on a timeline, and “needing to know” quietly takes over from “wanting to connect.”
In this episode, I break down why constant reassurance-seeking happens, and why the fix usually isn’t “stop needing people.” It’s narrower than that: you don’t have to stop wanting someone to stop making them responsible for how you feel. Eugene didn’t need to want her less. He needed to take back a job he’d quietly assigned her without realizing it.
I also walk through two questions worth asking about anything you’re chasing reassurance around — what are you actually asking it to do for you, and what would you still want if you already knew you were okay without the answer.
If you want a structured way to see your own patterns, take the quiz at askdrgil.com.
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