Some part of you already knows

This is the hardest one. The honest version of a situationship analysis almost always ends here: at the recognition that the answer has been available for weeks, sometimes months, and has been quietly known by a part of you that your more optimistic parts have been overruling. The body tends to know before the mind admits it. The slight tightening when you talk about the future. The way a certain kind of question never gets a satisfying answer. The feeling of being slightly held at a distance even in close moments. Trusting what you already know is one of the hardest things to do in romantic life, because what you already know is often inconvenient. But the part of you that knows is not pessimistic — it's accurate. It has been collecting and processing information you've been trying not to fully register. Sitting with what it's saying, rather than arguing it out of the room with hope, is the beginning of acting in your own interest. The situation won't become clearer than it already is to the part of you that's been paying honest attention.