The Greatest Kindness in Intimacy Is to Respect His Abyss

If the person you love is sitting at the edge of a cliff in despair, would you desperately pull him back — or would you sit beside him?

There is a scene in Normal People that has never left me.

Connell sinks into severe depression. He feels like a broken part in the machinery of life. In his most fragile moments, he calls Marianne.

She doesn’t try to drag him out of the darkness.

She simply places the phone beside her pillow and listens — to his breathing, to his silence, even to his tears on the other end.

She is simply there. And somehow, that becomes a form of salvation.

Many people think silence is the most terrifying response.

But in intimacy, silence is not always the absence of care. Sometimes it is a restraint. Before speaking, you hesitate — unsure whether your words will soothe him or make the wound deeper.

As Kevin Tsai once said:

Some people see you crying and hold you first.

Others see you crying and start reasoning with you.

The latter is always harder to bear.

When I was younger, I often tried to play the role of the rescuer.

Whenever my boyfriend spiraled into anxiety, self-doubt, or stress, I panicked.

I would gather my courage, sit him down, and try to untangle everything with logic and reason.

More often than not, I ran into a wall.

Eventually, I realized that every time I tried to persuade or save him, I was aligning myself with being “right” — not with being beside him.

The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas wrote that true respect means acknowledging the irreducible otherness of another person. When we rush to communicate or fix someone’s emotions, there is often a quiet arrogance beneath it.

We assume, unconsciously, that your pain can be analyzed, defined, and healed by me.

We appoint ourselves the editor of someone else’s life story. When we encounter a tragic chapter, we want to rewrite it.

But our urgency often says more about our discomfort with losing control than about their suffering.

So I began choosing silence.

I stepped back and became a reader instead.

Readers do not grab the pen; they simply turn the page. Even in the darkest chapters, they stay — quietly — under the rain with the character.

He will probably never know how much it hurts me to swallow my words.

This is not easy.

The closer someone is to us, the harder it is to simply give them space.

We feel compelled to act. Sometimes we even develop a premature sense of sacrifice.

And that silent martyrdom slowly distorts the balance between two people.

In those moments, remind yourself: He does not need answers. He needs you to show him through your presence that no matter who he becomes, he is still worthy of gentleness.

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in Letters to a Young Poet:

Love is good, for love is difficult.

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks.

We must accept that even in intimacy, we cannot live another person’s life for them.

His lessons are his to complete.

When you stop trying to rescue him, the tension between you begins to dissolve.

When you quietly live your own life, your steady presence becomes healing in itself.

Recommended Reading

1. The Art of Loving — Erich Fromm

Love is not an accident; it is a lifelong practice.

2. Getting the Love You Want — Harville Hendrix

A partner is a mirror, reflecting our unhealed wounds.

3. Nonviolent Communication — Marshall Rosenberg

Learn to express needs rather than accusations.

4. Essays in Love — Alain de Botton

A philosophical dissection of romantic illusions.

5. Mating in Captivity — Esther Perel

Love needs distance; mystery keeps desire alive.