You've done everything right.

You've suggested activities you could do together-baking, crafts, walks. You've read the books on love languages and tried to speak theirs. You've communicated your needs clearly: acts of service, words of affirmation, feeling connected. You've been vulnerable enough to say "I'm getting quite close to just not wanting to do this anymore."

And still, you're sitting here feeling like roommates instead of partners.

Here's what most relationship advice won't tell you: there's a critical assessment that needs to happen before any communication technique, love language accommodation, or quality time strategy can possibly work. And most people skip right past it.

What Every Relationship Book Tells You To Do

Open any relationship book, click on any couple's therapist's website, scroll through any relationship advice column, and you'll find the same core focuses:

Communication techniques. How to use "I" statements instead of "you" statements. How to express feelings without blame. How to listen actively. How to create safe spaces for difficult conversations.

Love languages. Understanding whether your partner needs words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service, or receiving gifts. Learning to speak their language even if it's not your native one.

Conflict resolution skills. How to fight fair. How to repair after arguments. How to compromise. How to find win-win solutions.

Quality time strategies. Date night ideas. Shared hobbies. Daily check-ins. Rituals of connection.

And none of this is wrong. These are all valid, useful tools for building healthy relationships.

But they all share one massive, unspoken assumption.

The One Factor Nobody Mentions

Every single one of these approaches assumes both people are willing to engage.

Think about it: You can learn perfect communication techniques, but what happens when the other person responds to your vulnerable sharing with "that's not true, it's just in your head"? You can identify and speak their love language fluently, but what if they never reciprocate by learning yours? You can suggest quality time activities every week, but what if they decline every single one while having plenty of energy for activities that don't include you?

The forgotten factor is this: the distinction between "can't" and "won't."

Most relationship advice operates on the "can't" assumption-that people want to connect but lack the skills or knowledge to do it well. If someone can't communicate effectively, you teach them. If they can't understand your love language, you explain it. If they can't think of quality time ideas, you suggest some.

But what almost no one addresses is the "won't" scenario-when someone is choosing not to engage, not because they lack skills, but because they're fundamentally unwilling to invest the effort.

And here's the crucial part: "won't" is actually more definitive information than "can't."

A skill deficit can be addressed through learning. A fundamental unwillingness reveals incompatibility.

How To Tell If Your Partner Is Choosing Not To Engage

There's a mechanism operating in every relationship interaction that most people can't see. Researcher John Gottman, after studying couples for over four decades, identified it and called it "bids for connection."

Here's how it works:

Every time you reach out for connection-suggesting an activity, sharing something about your day, asking for affection, expressing a need-you're making a bid. You're essentially testing: "Are you there? Will you meet me?"

The other person has three possible responses:

Turn toward the bid: They engage, respond, participate. When you suggest baking together, they say "Yes, when?" or at least "I can't today but how about this weekend?" When you say you don't feel connected, they say "Tell me more, I want to understand."

Turn away from the bid: They ignore it, dismiss it, or are too distracted to notice. Your suggestion gets "I'm too groggy" or "I'm in a weird headspace." Your vulnerable sharing gets "that's just in your head."

Turn against the bid: They respond with hostility or criticism. Like backseat driver comments when you're just trying to get somewhere together.

Gottman's research found something stunning: In couples who stayed together and reported being happy, partners turned toward bids 86% of the time. In couples who later divorced, that number was only 33%.

But here's what makes this mechanism particularly insightful: the pattern of turning away reveals the difference between "can't" and "won't."

When you look at where your partner's energy actually goes, you can see the truth. If someone is "too sick" or "too groggy" to go for a walk with you but has hours of energy for gaming in bed, that's not a capability problem. The energy exists. It's being allocated selectively.

If someone says they're "not really a feelings kind of person" but freely expresses criticism and judgment, they're not incapable of expressing feelings. They're selectively choosing which feelings to express and which ones to withhold.

This is the invisible mechanism that explains why all your efforts haven't worked: Every suggestion you make is a bid. Every clear communication of your needs is a bid. Every vulnerable moment where you express feeling disconnected is a bid. And the pattern of responses you're receiving is telling you something definitive about willingness, not ability.

There's a second mechanism operating here too, one that makes this pattern even more damaging. When someone consistently tells you that your lived experience is false-"that's not true, it's just in your head"-researchers call this "reality-challenging."

Psychologist Jennifer Freyd found that when one partner consistently invalidates the other's emotional reality, it creates what she termed "betrayal trauma." Your own perceptions become unreliable to you. You start second-guessing everything you feel.

Have you noticed yourself thinking "Maybe I'm being too needy" or "Maybe I should just be happy they're there at all"? That's this mechanism at work. The repeated dismissal of your reality is designed-whether intentionally or not-to make you distrust yourself instead of recognizing the pattern in front of you.

What This Really Means For Your Relationship

This changes the fundamental question you're asking.

You've been asking: "How do I fix this relationship? What else can I try? What am I doing wrong?"

But the research on willingness vs. ability suggests a completely different question: "Is this relationship fundamentally compatible when only one person is willing to do the work?"

Psychologist Sue Johnson, who developed Emotionally Focused Therapy, makes a critical distinction in her work with couples. She talks about "attachment injuries"-moments when we reach for our partner in genuine need and they're not there.

But she distinguishes between partners who can't meet needs in a moment (they're overwhelmed, they're dealing with their own crisis, they lack a specific skill) versus partners who consistently demonstrate they won't engage with your emotional world at all.

The first is a temporary limitation. The second is a fundamental statement about the relationship's viability.

Look at your situation through this lens: You've escalated your bids systematically. First casual suggestions for activities. Then reading books and trying to accommodate their unstated needs. Then clearly expressing your own needs. Finally, telling them you're close to ending the relationship.

In attachment research, this is called "protest behavior"-unconsciously escalating to test if the relationship is safe. Each escalation is asking: "Will you show up now? Is this enough to matter?"

What answer have you been getting?

Psychologist Eli Finkel researches what he calls "the all-or-nothing marriage"-the reality that modern relationships require unprecedented levels of psychological insight and responsiveness to thrive. His research found that relationships can only reach their potential when both partners are willing to do that psychological work.

You're doing it unilaterally.

And here's the paradigm shift: What you're experiencing isn't a communication problem, a love language mismatch, or a quality time deficit. Those are symptoms. The actual issue is fundamental incompatibility between someone who is willing to engage and someone who consistently demonstrates they won't.

All the relationship tools in the world can't bridge that gap. Communication techniques require someone willing to communicate. Love languages require someone willing to learn and speak yours. Quality time requires someone willing to say yes.

The worldview shift is this: Choosing to leave a relationship where your needs are consistently invalidated and unmet isn't failure. It's recognizing that compatibility requires mutual effort, and that you deserve a partnership where both people are making bids for connection and both people are turning toward those bids.

Three Things To Track This Week

Before you can move forward, you need clarity on what you're actually seeing versus what you're being told you're seeing.

Take out a piece of paper and track these three things for the next week:

1. Energy allocation

Where does your partner's energy actually go? Not where they say it goes, not where they claim it can't go-where does it actually, observably go? Make a simple log:

• Time spent on activities they choose (gaming, etc.):
• Time spent on activities you suggest together:
• Time spent on household tasks:
• Time spent in conversation about feelings/relationship:

The pattern will tell you what you need to know about "can't" versus "won't."

2. Bid tracking

Every time you make a bid for connection this week, note it and note the response:

• Bid: "Want to try that recipe together?"
• Response: Turn toward / Turn away / Turn against

Gottman's numbers were 86% turning toward for successful relationships, 33% for relationships that ended. What's your percentage?

3. Reality-challenging moments

When do you express a feeling or perception and receive dismissal? Write down:

• What you said you were experiencing
• What they told you was "really" happening
• How you felt after that interaction

This will help you see the pattern of your reality being challenged and start reconnecting with your own perceptions as valid.

Then ask yourself this question-and answer it honestly: If absolutely nothing changed in the next month, could you stay in this relationship while maintaining your sense of self, your wellbeing, and your capacity for independence?

Not "should you," but can you? Does this relationship as it currently exists allow you to be the person you want to be?

What To Do When You're Destroying Your Independence

You mentioned wanting to be independent but being in a situation that's destroying your independence. That's not a contradiction-it's clarity.

Here's your version of this insight: The path to the independence you're seeking might actually require accepting that this relationship, as it currently exists, is incompatible with your wellbeing.

What would need to happen for you to feel genuinely hopeful-not resigned, not managing expectations, but genuinely hopeful-about this relationship's future?

Write that down. Be specific. Not "they'd be better" but "they would do X, Y, and Z consistently."

Now ask: Based on the pattern you've observed-particularly their response (or lack thereof) when you said you were close to leaving-do you believe those changes are going to happen?

If you don't believe change is possible anymore, that loss of belief is significant data. It's your internal wisdom recognizing the difference between "can't" and "won't."

One more thing: You said you've been neglecting friendships with people who actually want to do things with you because you've been focused on fixing this relationship.

This week, spend time with those friends. Not as a manipulation to make your partner jealous, but to give yourself a lived contrast. Experience what reciprocal relationships feel like. Notice how it feels when someone turns toward your bids instead of away from them.

That contrast will help you reconnect with what you deserve and rebuild the sense of self that's been eroding.

The Decision You're Actually Facing

Understanding the "can't" versus "won't" distinction is the first step. It gives you the clarity to see what you're actually dealing with.

But there's a whole dimension we haven't explored yet: the decision-making process itself when you're emotionally entangled with someone.

Research shows that deciding whether to stay or leave has distinct psychological stages, each with specific tasks. There are frameworks for setting boundaries during a trial period. There are strategies for preparing yourself emotionally for either outcome-genuine change or departure.

Knowing the difference between "can't" and "won't" tells you what you're dealing with. But how do you make and implement the decision when your heart is still invested, when you still remember the good times, when leaving means blowing up your life as you know it?

That's the territory worth exploring next: how to move from recognition to action, and how to trust yourself enough to prioritize your own wellbeing even when someone you love is telling you your needs aren't real.

Because here's what you need to know: Your needs are real. Your perceptions are valid. And deserving a partner who willingly, consistently turns toward your bids for connection isn't asking too much.

It's the baseline for what a relationship should be.