The same questions, over and over, are wearing you down

Come, let me sit with you in this, for it is a wearing thing to love someone and be exhausted by them at once. The irritation is depletion, not a failure of love — love and exhaustion sit together easily in a tired heart, and the sharpness that escapes when your patience gives is not your love failing but your patience, a finite thing, running low; those who feel this irritation are usually the ones giving the most, so meet the guilt gently. There is usually a need beneath the repeated question — a question asked again after it is answered rarely wants the answer, but reassurance, or connection, or comes from a mind that cannot hold the answer, so hearing the need beneath softens the repetition from an irritation into a request you can sometimes answer more than the words. And tend your patience like a well that must be refilled — patience is not willpower but a well that runs dry when drawn from without refilling, so the work is not to squeeze more from a dry well but to protect the rests and help and moments that put water back, for a refilled heart meets the hundredth question far better. Who is it that keeps asking, and what might they be needing?