“This is your story. Write it the way you imagine it, with the people and things that delight you most. Write it before someone else takes the pen, draws your path for you, and scribbles away your life.”
Dear Universe,
Giving love to someone is the greatest gift we give in our lives. Love can be comforting, healing, and transformative.
But what about loving someone who doesn’t want our love or simply can’t give us the same affection in return? What do we do then?
I recently heard from someone struggling with those questions. He is in love with his wife. His wife has told him she loves him, but she’s not in love with him anymore.
Those are heart-tearing words. I know because I’ve been on the receiving end of those exact same words before.
He struggles to leave (they have two children together) and so he has stayed living with his family for the last 18 months, hoping something will change, hoping his wife can find her happiness and they will find their way together again.
And while it’s beautiful to love unconditionally like that, and I hope his wife does find happiness within herself again, I have to wonder: what about his happiness?
I’m not suggesting he should just get up and leave. I know it’s far more complicated and difficult than that.
But what I wish for him is to take some of that love he is so freely giving his wife, and turn it around on himself.
After all, we can’t make someone else happy, just like someone else can’t make us happy. Happiness is always an inside job.
Maybe in loving himself unconditionally first, the answers he’s seeking will become clearer.
When I was on the receiving end of those words, it felt like a slap to the face, a punch in the gut, a hammer pound to my heart—all at once.
I was confused as this admission had dropped with as much predictability as an elephant landing on my lap. It felt impossible and I would have bet anything it would never happen.
But there I was with this heavy, unbearable burden weighing me down. I was in a state of confusion for a while since my partner wasn’t being completely honest. It took time to fill in the gaps, figure out the lies and come to terms with the truth.
As I did—and it was not an easy journey—things became clearer. I realized that above all else, I wanted to be happy. And this relationship, no matter how committed I was to it and making it work, wasn’t going to make me happy.
In fact, it was making me pretty damn miserable.
Trying to salvage a relationship when the other person didn’t want to felt like trying to glue tiny shards of broken glass back together to make a vase.
In other words, it was torturous, dangerous to my well-being, and downright impossible.
We can’t make someone love us just as much as we can’t stare at a daisy hoping it will change into a rose.
As for love? I realized what I had always known: I wanted to give my love to someone who would want it, appreciate it, cherish it, and give the same in return.
I didn’t want to keep being in love with someone who wasn’t in love with me.
Naturally, knowing this didn’t make me fall out of love instantly. Knowing this didn’t make the eventual break-up any easier. Knowing this didn’t make me heal any faster.
(All those things took time—so much time, tears—so many tears, and the support of everyone around me—so much love and support.)
But knowing this gave me a certainty I hadn’t had before. It snapped me out of the illusion I was living in.
Knowing this one true fact—that I wanted more for myself—helped me start making choices for myself that felt right.
The elephant was still there, but not crushing my entire being. And I was ready to take a step into the darkness and figure out my direction as I went, trusting I would find my way.
When we make choices that lead to our happiness, and not our undoing, a funny thing happens. The people around us get permission to do the same. In seeing how our choices effect our happiness, they feel inspired and brave enough to live their lives honestly too.
Because the thing is people who love us don’t want us to suffer. They hate seeing us suffer. People who truly love us want us to be happy. Their happiness multiplies when we are content. They feel at peace when we are at peace.
In loving someone do we make sacrifices?
Yes, but we should never sacrifice our whole self.
In loving someone do we give of ourselves selflessly?
Yes, but we shouldn’t give our whole selves away.
Should we love someone unconditionally?
Yes, but only under the right conditions.
We all know love is complicated, but loving someone shouldn’t be a struggle—at least not in the way where day in and day out it is.
It shouldn’t make us feel unworthy or rejected or sad or fill our hearts with despair. It shouldn’t diminish us or darken our days.
Love shouldn’t be the hardest thing we do; life will throw hard at us in so many other ways.
It shouldn’t hurt to love someone.
We shouldn’t have to torment ourselves, praying every night for the one we love to love us in return. We shouldn’t have to wake up every morning wondering if today is the day—the day they will finally reciprocate all that love we’ve been giving so unconditionally.
We just shouldn’t.
You have to love in a way that serves your highest good. Your love is a gift and it should be shared with those who will treat it as such.
There are so many different ways to love someone, so many different ways to show a person love.
Love doesn’t always stay the same or fit the definition we have solidified in our minds. Love can take on many shapes. It can grow and expand over time, or evolve into something else entirely.
It can be given face-to-face, but just as easily it can come from a distance, from a safe we place we’ve created where our happiness and health is protected first.
Always, love should feel buoyant and natural—easy to give out, easy to receive back.
Love should make us sparkle—or at least feel like we are bursting with light, shining from within.
And we don’t have to wait eight seconds or eighteen months or eighty years to find it.
We simply need to start by loving ourselves…unconditionally.
Much Gratitude,
A
