You love to love and your love is kind, accommodating, tolerant, extremely giving and insightful. It’s easy to see where someone else is acting out of fear, trying to protect where they’ve been wounded before. When someone lies about how they truly feel and then acts the opposite, their confusion becomes so clear to us. Their need to be in control, or manipulate a situation is expected for someone who doesn’t trust themselves or others. Every shaming bullet they aim at you is a cry for love. So you love willingly, even desperately, but it’s never enough. The cycle becomes predictable, as you begin to anticipate the moment they will escape into a familiar dark void where no one can get in, an inner trap of silent rage that will eventually morph back into denial. And even though the ache in your heart, the chronic tension in your shoulders, or the tight knot in your stomach never allows you the same level of forgetfulness, you tell yourself, “Maybe tomorrow will be different.”
Because, you know, if they only saw themselves the way you do, they would love themselves too. You’ve always seen the potential in them, and have waited with such diligent patience. You expect, any day now, they’re going to move past their past, and be who you know they can be, because you’re supporting them. No matter how bad it gets, you never leave. You’re the only one who is there for them, and they need you. They told you this over and over, and you know it is true. What kind of horrible person would walk away now? Besides, It feels good to feel this needed.
It’s almost invigorating to think you can rescue someone with your love.
Yes, they have to get better, because you don’t want to fail them. And how could God fail you now, after all the sacrifice you have made? You’ve put aside your own dreams, compromised your own emotional and physical needs, suppressed your desire for more, and held back your own plans so your partner doesn’t feel worse or alone. Surely, you will be rewarded, but when?
Sometimes we’re so busy loving someone to their destiny, we miss our own.
Living as a lesser version of ourselves for someone else isn’t noble, nor does it hold purpose. God guides us to love others, as we love ourselves. But if we’re being honest, isn’t that the struggle that creates these kind of relationships in the first place?
Who wants to wade through their own insecurities and feelings of inadequacy?
Who would ever willingly invite the pain of abandonment and rejection to the surface for a real conversation?
Why would we ever desire to spend time alone, connecting with our most authentic selves, when it feels like we’ve been alone our whole lives?
And the shame. The guilt and shame must be avoided at all costs.
I guess it’s easy to see how we can get lost in love.
Sometimes we mistake loving ourselves, with doing whatever it takes to get someone else to love us.
But we’re the only ones with the calling and the ability to do the job. And thank God that is True! Can you imagine if the fate of how we experience Love was placed solely in the care of another human being?
Well, if you relate to any of the things I’m sharing here, you probably can. And it’s a terrifying thought isn’t it, to place that much heavy burdened, critical responsibility onto another, or worse, to place it on yourself for the ones you love?
This is why we’re called to stay in our own lane, do our own inner work, seek to find our own path of less suffering, and more ease of joy and peace. It can be a privilege to participate in other people’s healing, but it’s dangerous and unnecessary to withhold love and healing from yourself while waiting for it.
