7 Things Your Partner Wants to Hear Every Day

Losing something makes us all panicked, especially if it's something requisite to the particular moment (i.e., the bike pump that's standing between you and meeting a friend for a long ride), or it's just plain old beloved (i.e., the PBS mug your mom gave you, which only you—and you alone—use). But worse than that panic is the loneliness that sweeps over when you're the only one running around the house, upending vases and pawing through sock drawers, thinking that nobody else but you knows about, or even cares about, your very-very-very single mom who 30 years ago exacted 10 painful bucks a month from her anemic budget just to donate to the 1983 PBS pledge drive to earn that damn mug, thus proving to her kids that the world was a place where intelligence, Masterpiece Theatre and Sesame Street reigned. You may not know the full backstory to his Dad's guitar pick. But you know what he's feeling when it vanishes. Helping him find it also helps him remember, hey, he's not alone—he's got you. PS: You don't actually have to find it. It's the digging around wildly that counts.