Love Tests? Just Give the Answers!!!

In this episode of The Voyage Cast, co-creator and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Matt Johnson unpacks the concept of “love tests”—those subtle, often subconscious ways we test the people closest to us. Whether it’s expecting a partner to “just know” what we need or withholding connection to see if they’ll chase us, these patterns often lead to misunderstanding and emotional distance. Through thoughtful insight and practical examples, Matt explores how love tests develop, how to recognize them, and how to replace them with vulnerability, clear communication, and real connection. This episode is a guide to building trust without guesswork—and loving without conditions.

Transcript

0:00  
Hey, this is Eddie here with another episode of the voyage cast. On today's episode, we have Matt Johnson discussing love tests.

0:09  
How often do we do that inadvertently, without knowing to our partners, we give them a test that they're going to fail.

0:18  
The example of this is we. We expect our partner to have the ability to read our minds, and so let's say we're we're lonely, or we want to have intimacy, or we want to have an intellectual conversation, or there's a problem that needs to be solved, whatever it may be, we look for our partner to actually read us, to have some ability, some supernatural ability, to like, read our thoughts and respond to us in a way without us having to ask. And if they don't do that, then we say, well, they must not get us. They must not really love us because they don't know us. And so we then start to create a caricature of how they are, how they feel about us, and we start to build up this very false narrative of our partner, but it becomes very real for the person giving the love test. And this is a habit that couples fall into. It's it's based in trauma and being hurt and having some rejection in your life, possibly in the same relationship that you're given the love test. But the answer to it isn't to continue to give that test, because it's an impossible ask, is something that people are going to fail. Your partner is going to fail over and over again, and it's just going to prove this false narrative that you have in your in your mind, about who they are and how they care about you. The answer to it is actually to give them the answers to the test. Tell them what you want, tell them what you need take a chance at actually being vocal and being vulnerable with the things that are important to you, right? So things aren't working out in your in your relationship, but it's specific things like, Hey, I hate it when you

2:17  
when you're late. I hate it when you don't give me a kiss before you go to work. I hate it when you

2:25  
don't take time to ask me how my day was. These little pieces. Sometimes we feel embarrassed to say it, and that's why we do the love test, but we have to get vulnerable in the things that are important to us. So what is the giving the answers to the test look like? What it's being very specific on the needs that we have. And in therapy, that is exactly what we do. We take the time, we slow down. We actually identify the needs that each partner has. We talk about them. We talk about why they're important. We talk about how we can, you know, partners can get their needs met, what the barriers are to those things. So when you ask the question, when you ask your partner to actually do what you're what you're craving and what you want, they have the potential to actually do it. The one of the reasons that we don't, though, and we have to be mindful of this is that by putting ourselves out there in a vulnerable place, we risk rejection. So if we ask for our partner to take us on a date on a Friday, or we ask our partner to give us a kiss when they get home or before they leave for work, and they fail to do it, then it feels reject, rejecting to us, and so that's why we often avoid asking for what we need. But we need to get into a growth mindset as a partner, to be able to ask for these things and then to be able to problem solve when they don't get done. Hey, remember, we had that conversation and we were going to work on this, and you said you're going to do this, like, what do you is this just hard for you to remember? Or is this something that we need to put some reminders in? Or we just need to practice, but we need to get better, and we need to, like, take some chances and be brave in our relationships if we're going to get the results that we want. So think about that. Don't give the love test. Give the answers to the test. All right, have a great one. Hey. Thanks for joining us on this episode of The Voyage cast. If you like this episode or any of our others, don't forget to share them with your friends or family, and don't forget to like and subscribe. It really does help us so we can make more of this content for you

4:43  
until next time, then,

4:45  
goodbye, goodbye, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai