Wondering about the signs your partner cares about you deeply?
We all know that being in love and loving someone are two different things. It can be easy to notice the signs of someone being in love.
But deep affection? That’s a little harder to pinpoint, especially as it doesn’t jack you up with hormones that make you do crazy, irrational things.
But thankfully, research has found some answers for us.Here are 8 signs that your partner cares about you deeply, according to psychology.
1) They get very upset with you during conflict
What a bold way to kick off the signs your partner cares about you deeply, eh?
You were probably expecting something like “they don’t pick fights with you.” And that can be true — my own partner, for example, is extremely good at putting out fires before they even begin.
But here’s the thing: deep love is only one emotion in a relationship. You can’t have depth in one emotion without depth in all the others.
This means that the person who you love most also has the greatest capacity to hurt you, or to rattle your cage.
Science confirms this too, with a study showing that greater love leads to greater hate when your partner betrays you.
I found this illustrated perfectly by one scene from Life as We Know It, where Holly gets into a heated argument with her co-parent Eric. Her boyfriend Sam, who overheard, tells her “If my ex wife and I fought like that, we’d still be together.”
It’s because we expect a lot from the person we love, and we are attached to a specific vision of a future with them. When they do something that veers off those expectations, you get all the more upset.
2) They want to be around you a lot
Do you know the recipe to love?
Well, it’s not something you can whip up in your kitchen, but a psychologist called Zick Rubin found that love is made up of three main ingredients:
- Attachment
- Caring
- Intimacy
Let’s have a look at them one at a time.
First, there’s attachment. This is the feeling of needing to be with your partner and wanting physical contact and approval from them.
Makes sense, right? If your partner cares about you deeply, you’d expect them to want to hang out with you.
You can see this if they actively make plans to spend quality time with you, or even if they don’t make plans with other people in order to be at home when you are.
3) They put your happiness and needs next to yours
This next sign is what Zick Rubin defined as “caring” — the second of his signs that your partner cares about you deeply.
What does this look like?
Look at how you make decisions together, particularly when there’s a difference of opinion.
I can see this very clearly in my own relationship. When we started looking for a place together, he actively looked for the area I preferred, even if it wasn’t his own top choice.
You can even see it in smaller examples — such as choosing a restaurant, how to spend your vacation, or what movie to watch.
Whatever the situation, your partner is sure to consider your preferences and desires just as seriously as his own.
4) They share their thoughts and desires with you
Now we come to the third ingredient of deep love mentioned above — intimacy.
Psychologist Zick Rubin defined this as sharing your private thoughts, feelings, and desires with your partner.
And we can see that this is indeed what creates intimacy and closeness. You know those experiments where people had to share increasingly more and more intimate thoughts and information with each other?
That’s a great way to understand why opening up is so important to showing care and affection.
5) They take an interest in your life
Another one of the signs your partner cares about you deeply is that they take an active interest in your life.
There’s no study that explicitly proves this that I could find — but we can see it in every aspect of your life.
If you care about something, you’ll spend a lot of time thinking about it, worrying about it, and wanting to be familiar with it.
Even something like your fitness — if you care about being in shape, you’ll take an interest in what your body looks like, feeding it correctly, weighing yourself, and staying physically active.
Or, take a business. If you care about how it’s doing, you’ll make sure to track income, expenses, website traffic, sales… You get the picture.
And it’s even more true when it comes to human relationships. When you really care about someone, you’ll want to know how they’re doing, and what their day was like when you weren’t together.
You’ll ask them how they’re feeling, what their plans are, and enjoy simply chatting with them as well.
6) They show you respect
Do you think you can care about someone deeply without respecting them?
Technically, it should be possible — they are two separate things, and one experiment even asked people to consider a relationship where there was love but not respect.
However, the same study also found that respect is considered to be foundational to a close romantic relationship, to such an extent that we assume if there is love, there must be respect.
So a huge sign that your partner cares about you deeply is that they respect you too.
The organization Love is Respect lists these actions as integral to showing respect:
- Talking openly and honestly
- Listening to each other
- Valuing each other’s feelings and needs
- Compromising
- Speaking kindly to and about each other
- Giving each other space
- Supporting each other’s interests, hobbies, careers, etc.
- Building each other up
- Honoring each other’s boundaries, no matter what
7) They listen to you
“He never listens!” “She talks way too much.” These are common complaints in relationships that aren’t going super smoothly.
And science shows why poor listening is often linked with relationship downfall. It’s been proven that when someone cares about you deeply, they listen better.
This holds true even if you’re sharing something that makes your partner distressed — they will still care about what you have to say.
This is linked to feeling responsible for your well-being, as well as wanting to help you and make you feel cared for.
This is one of the most beautiful signs your partner cares about you deeply, because it works wonders to keep the relationship strong and patch up any rough patches.
As you both listen to each other, you get to know more about their needs, and give them better support.
8) They’re willing to make sacrifices for you
We all know relationships require some compromise and sacrifice. From the little things like letting them eat half your ice cream, to the bigger things like moving countries because of their work.
Is this a sign of deep love and care? Research confirms it is.
Psychologists found that people sacrifice for others in order to show them they care, and also to feel good about themselves in the relationship.
Other studies have found that people who are willing to make sacrifices for their partners are happier and their relationship is more likely to last.
Of course, there is a healthy limit to how much sacrifice benefits the relationship before it gets to be too much.
A good sign is that it’s reciprocal and you’re both willing to do it for the other. It also helps if the other person realizes it’s a sacrifice, and expresses their gratitude for it.
As long as you and your partner approach your relationship with love — which the signs above confirm you do — a moderate amount of sacrifice is a healthy and positive part of your relationship.
Noticing the signs your partner cares about you deeply
Do you recognize any of these signs your partner cares about you deeply?
Hopefully, you’ve been able to identify with as many of them as possible.
But the truth is, every relationship, no matter how fantastic it is, still has some room for improvement. We’re all human, after all!
Relationships take work and learning how to get them right.
So if you feel your relationship is missing any one of these signs, take it as an opportunity to start embracing a new positive behavior.
You have the power to shape what your relationship looks like — and one of the best ways to do that is to lead by example.
