Why do I need to control what my partner does when I'm scared of losing them?

This is the knot, isn't it? Control feels like safety. If you can just manage their actions, their time, their attention—then loss becomes impossible. Except it doesn't work that way. It never has. Mirabai faced something similar: the desire to possess the divine, to make it stay, to prove it loved her back. And she discovered that the moment she stopped trying to cage the love, she actually felt it. Control is born from fear, but it creates the very distance you're afraid of. Your partner feels the grip. They pull away. And you tighten more. It becomes a cycle that confirms your original fear: that you're not safe, not enough, going to be abandoned. The examined heart—what Mirabai called for—means looking at what you're really afraid of. Rejection? Worthlessness? Being left? Those fears are real and they deserve compassion. But controlling someone else won't heal them. Only you can. Start here: what would it feel like to trust that even if your partner left, you'd survive? That you'd grieve, yes—Mirabai knew grief—but you'd endure? When you stop needing them to stay to prove you're lovable, something shifts. You can actually love them freely. And paradoxically, that's when they feel safest staying.