Do You Know How You Want to Be Loved? - John Glanvill - Anxiety Specialist

Do You Know How You Want to Be Loved?

Most people say they want love. Fewer can say, with any precision, how they want to be loved. Fewer still know how the people closest to them want to receive it.

That gap causes a surprising amount of quiet unhappiness. Two people can both be trying, both feel unseen, and both conclude that something is wrong with the relationship — when the real problem is that they are offering love in the form they understand, not in the form the other person can feel.

So the first question is not “Do they love me?”
It is “Do I even know what I am asking for?”

And then: “Do I know what they are asking for?”

We treat love as if it were one substance. It is not. People want very different things under the same word:

– to be listened to
– to be protected
– to be enabled
– to hear the words
– to see it in actions
– gifts
– space
– constant contact
– reassurance
– encouragement
– physical closeness
– emotional closeness
– family nearby
– children
– animals
– food
– adventure
– quiet competence
– honesty even when it is uncomfortable

The list is long because people are different. Upbringing, personality, exhaustion, anxiety and old hurt all change what “being loved” feels like in the body.

This becomes especially tangled if you live with anxiety or Pure OCD. The mind can turn love into another form of checking. Did they text soon enough? Did their tone change? Did that look mean something? Reassurance-seeking pretends to be about connection. Often it is about trying to settle an inner alarm. The other person then feels tested rather than met.

Three questions are worth writing down, not just thinking about:

1. Who is in front of me, and how do I think they want to be loved?
2. Who am I, and how do I actually want to be loved?
3. How can I show people, cleanly, how to love me — without making them responsible for my whole emotional state?

The first question stops you assuming. The second stops you being vague. The third is where a lot of adults have never been trained.

A small example. A daughter arrives at her mother’s house and says, “Let me make the coffee.” The mother says, “No, no, I’ll do it.” Both want to give. Both use service as their language of care. One of them has to yield, and one of them does not get to express love in the way that feels natural. A slightly more awake response would be, “Thank you, I’d love a coffee.” That lets the other person give. Receiving well is also a form of loving.

Another example. A man spends the afternoon on the garden because he knows his wife likes it tidy. What she wanted that day was to be held or listened to. He worked hard and still missed. Effort is not the same as accuracy.

This is why guessing is expensive. Ask. Watch what actually lands. Notice what you yourself keep hoping for and never say. Many relationships are full of unpaid labour in the wrong currency.

There is a further layer. You train people how to treat you. If you never say what you need, they will keep offering what is easy for them. If you punish them for getting it wrong, they will become cautious or resentful. If you hint, sulk or expect them to read your mind, you are asking them to manage an inner world they cannot see. Clearer is kinder.

That does not mean the other person must become your regulator. “I need reassurance every time I feel doubt” is not a love language. It is often the anxiety system looking for a host. A healthier version sounds more like: “When you listen without trying to fix me, I feel close to you.” Or: “I do not need presents. I do need you to keep the plans we make.” Specific. Adult. Possible.

Self-love belongs in this conversation too. If you do not know how you want to be treated, you will accept almost anything and then resent it. If you secretly believe you are only lovable when useful, impressive or low-maintenance, you will train people to use you. Knowing how you want to be loved is part of self-respect. Asking for it is part of honesty. Letting someone fail at it without collapsing is part of growing up.

Video 19 sits in this territory: care as something you practise, not only something you feel. Love that cannot include a clean “no,” a boundary, or the other person’s actual nature is still a form of control. The aim is not to become a person who needs nothing. The aim is to stop making love a guessing game full of hidden rules.

If you want a practical way to use this, try one week of more accurate loving:

– Ask one person how they most feel cared for.
– Tell one person one specific thing that helps you.
– Notice one moment where you offered what you would want, rather than what they wanted.
– Notice one moment where you demanded proof instead of connection.

Then adjust. Love gets better when it becomes less telepathic and more deliberate.

Do the people in your life love you the way you want to be loved?
Maybe.
Maybe they would, if they knew.
Maybe you would recognise it more easily if you knew yourself.

That is a better place to start than assuming everyone should already understand.

Access this teaching and over 60 other videos for $15 a month, along with guided meditations and practical workbooks. These are The Chronicles of Common Sense, forged from facing life directly and learning through real-world experience. They guided me out of anxiety, OCD, bipolar depression and crippling self-consciousness — and helped me become more trusting, energetic, optimistic, self-loving and courageous.

This work reaches mind, body and soul. It gives you the tools to step courageously into the unknown. Knowledge only becomes wisdom when we test it through action. Those who act, adjust, and act again (ERP) will always move further than those who stay in thinking and worrying.

What do you desire?

The next action is yours. Take it.