Why “If He Wanted To, He Would” Is A Terrible Piece of Relationship Advice
How social media has normalized not communicating your needs with your partner
There’s a saying out there right now — all over the internet, in conversations, on TikTok, on Instagram, and even in songs like Kylie Morgan’s track:
“If he wanted to he would.”
Like most poor pieces of advice, there’s some truth in this statement. If someone truly has a goal and a mission, they’re likely to do whatever is necessary to achieve that.
However, this phrase is problematic for a lot of reasons that many people miss on first pass.
We like to believe that our partner, our love, our best friend and lover rolled into one would do anything for us. We want someone who can sacrifice for us, save us, rescue us, make us feel loved and cherished in the highest way possible. And we want them to do that all without us having to ask them to.
But the question remains — is this a fair expectation? Is this statement true? What are the issues with it? At the end of the day, while romantic and optimistic, nobody, no man or woman or anybody ever can fully know what we need, or, even if they did, fully satisfy what we need and want in our lives.
Here are a few more specific issues I’ve learned to have with this statement:
Issue #1: We don’t place this same burden on ourselves
I hate to admit it, but it’s very rarely that I go above and beyond for my partner. I am loving, compassionate, giving, and am always ready to help and support him in any way that is indicated as necessary or beneficial — but I do not spend every waking moment of my life ogling over what he might need or want from me.
That’s unrealistic, unhealthy, and a terrible way to try and love someone you’re close to.
If I don’t do everything in my power to show grand gestures of love and affection to my partner, why would I expect that of him?
Recently, I was in a rural highschool teaching relationship education for the research project at Auburn I’m apart of. I was briefly touching on the concept of “if he wanted to he would”, and one of the freshman girls in the class was indignant that “he would.”
We navigated a hypothetical situation where someone was dating someone else who’s phone had been taken away, and they were left with no way to text their partner, leaving them on delivered for the entire school day.
This girl insisted that if “he” (her hypothetical boyfriend in this situation) really loved her, and he were the one whose phone had been taken away, that he would still find a way to contact her.
After pointing out all of the ways that this was unreasonable or unfair, she still insisted — that she should find a way.
However, she didn’t place any sort of burden on herself for contacting him or giving him the benefit of the doubt.
I think that so many relationships fail and hatred is had towards a partner unnecessarily because of these over the top expectations that we have, often because of things we’re shown in movies and TV shows growing up.
We’re trained, from an incredibly young age, to believe in grand gestures, sacrifices, and doing “whatever it takes” for love. But often these expectations aren’t fair, reasonable, or realistic, which we’ll get into in a second.
Issue #2: Sometimes people can’t do what we want them to do
I would like to one day marry my boyfriend. He has revealed similar feelings to me, and we have a plan to do this after undergrad if all goes well. Just because that is something he wants doesn’t mean that that’s something he is going to do right now. Why?
Because we’re broke.
To marry me now would be irresponsible, complicated, and would be adding a lot of burden and stress on our lives right now. He knows that he needs to buckle down and finish school before he can commit to the rest of life with me.
In a very anxious stint in my life over the summer I fell into some “if he wanted to he would” thinking, mulling over how he wasn’t ready to marry me yet and therefore couldn’t possibly love me or be committed to me.
After working through these feelings, I realized how unreasonable and misguided I had become in the process of dreaming about our future.
He sat me down one day and told me that the day that he is able to take care of, financially, spiritually, emotionally, etc., he will marry me. He wants to — but he can’t right now. That doesn’t make him a subpar boyfriend, it just makes him human.
Issue #3: It’s not your partner’s job to sleuth out what you want
As my therapist often kindly reminds me, nobody is a mindreader — even our partners who know us so well. No one, no matter how well they know you or how many TikToks you send, knows exactly what you want and when you want it.
So much of dating culture today is a guessing game, trying to figure out what the other person wants because they aren’t expressing their needs and wants and you’re too scared to ask.
Communication is key in both partners getting their wants and needs met.
Sometimes it’s as simple as “I would really love it if you could get me flowers more often”, and them going “thanks for letting me know!” and then buying you flowers sometimes.
Sometimes it looks like asking someone to go somewhere with you and they can’t make it this time because of work. Then, the next time they have a free night, they choose you over other plans and make the sacrifice because they want to spend time with you.
Nobody is a mindreader. And “if he wanted to he would” lends itself to back and forth mindreading, where nothing is ever communicated and where at least one person is insecure in the relationship. It doesn’t have to go like that though.
In healthy relationships, people communicate what they need and want — and know that while things won’t be perfect, that the other person who loves and cares about them will try and take that information into account next time.
Like I mentioned before, there is something to this phrase. If you properly communicate with someone what you need, you ensure that they don’t have any baggage that is being brought up or triggered, and they still refuse to do what reasonable thing you’ve asked, that’s a problem.
If someone has all of the information they need and they still won’t show up for you when it is both reasonable and possible for them to do so, then you might have a problem on your hands.
I’m not at all advocating for sticking with unhealthy, stagnant, or unloving relationships in the slightest.
But “if he wanted to, he would” has become a weapon, often used to subdue men to the hands of clingy, needy, and insecure partners who refuse to let men off the hook for anything. This lends itself to a shame culture surrounding men, and makes it impossible for male partners in particular to be anything less than perfect — which they crave there to be space for.
People deserve patience, grace, and second-chances — not platitudes of what checklist of things they would be doing to prove their love to us.
It’s not the worst or most evil phrase in the world. But I think we can come up with some better ones.
