I Didn’t Know How to Be Loved

There was a time when I felt like a queen. Not the kind of queen who needed to be convinced she was worthy of the crown. The kind who could simply sit back and receive.

I was being loved in ways I had never imagined I could be loved.

The treatment was good. Better than good, actually. It was beyond what I had ever imagined I deserved. There was tenderness, thoughtfulness and generosity. I remember thinking: So, this is what it feels like to be loved well.

And for a while, I simply enjoyed it. I wasn’t calculating or trying to get it right. I wasn’t studying the relationship. I was just in it.

And then fear entered.

What if this is a test?

Is this even real?

What if I lose this?

Somewhere along the way, I stopped receiving the relationship and started protecting it. I became cautious. I stopped being as open. I started watching, assessing and questioning.

And then came the fear of losing something I had come to value so deeply.

So I did what many of us do when we are afraid of losing something:

I started working harder.

I began overfunctioning in the name of building the relationship I desired.

I took responsibility for things that were never mine to carry.

I tried to anticipate problems before they happened.

I adapted.

I accommodated.

I became careful about what I said and how I said it.

I avoided conflict because I was afraid conflict might threaten the relationship.

I kept quiet when I wanted to speak.

I compromised things I probably should have questioned.

And somewhere in all of that, I stopped hearing my own voice.

That is the strange thing about self-abandonment. It doesn’t always look like abandoning yourself.

Sometimes it looks like love.

Sometimes it looks like patience.

Sometimes it looks like being understanding.

Sometimes it looks like being the “easy” partner.

Sometimes it looks like doing everything you can to make something work.

But there is a difference between participating in a relationship and managing one.

I had slowly crossed that line.

I stopped watching for reciprocity because I was too busy making sure everything was okay.

I stopped asking, “What do I need?”

And started asking, “What does this relationship need from me?”

I stopped dreaming freely because I was afraid my dreams might somehow get in the way of this dream relationship.

Imagine that.

I had finally found something I thought I wanted, and then I became so afraid of losing it that I began shrinking myself to keep it.

And the irony is that the woman who had originally been loved so well wasn’t doing any of that.

She was just being herself.

She had dreams. Opinions. Desires. Boundaries.

She laughed, spoke, received and didn’t spend her days wondering whether she was doing enough to keep love. She was happy.

I started looking for her.

I wanted to find the woman who had fallen in love because she seemed lighter, freer and more alive.

And I missed her.

Eventually, I became exhausted – not just tired – exhausted in that particular way you become when you have been carrying something that was never supposed to be carried alone.

And one day, I had to sit with myself and ask: How did I get here?

More importantly: What exactly was I trying to protect?

Because underneath all the managing, adapting, overthinking and overfunctioning was fear.

Fear that if I stopped trying so hard, I would be abandoned.

Fear that if I spoke too honestly, I would become too much.

Fear that if I had needs, dreams, boundaries and expectations, I might lose the love I had worked so hard to keep.

And then came the question that hurt the most: Who taught me that I had to earn love?

Who taught me that I had to be perfect to be loved?

Who taught me that love was something I could lose if I wasn’t careful enough?

And perhaps the most painful question of all: Why did I believe that being loved required me to disappear?

Because the irony is almost cruel.

When I wasn’t trying so hard to be perfect, I was loved so well.

When I wasn’t managing the relationship, I was participating in it.

When I was simply myself, there was room for someone else to love me.

But somewhere along the way, I confused being loved with maintaining love.

And I lost myself in the maintenance.

This is the work I wrote about in Healing Her: I am Finally at Home in Myself.

Because healing isn’t always about leaving.

Sometimes healing is learning to stay without abandoning yourself.

Learning to speak before resentment builds. Learning to let another adult carry their part.

Learning that someone else’s disappointment doesn’t automatically mean you’ve done something wrong.

Learning to keep your dreams even when you fall in love.

Learning that you don’t have to become smaller to make love work.

And perhaps most importantly, learning how to receive.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately.

About the woman I was when I first felt loved.

About the woman I became when I became afraid of losing it.

And about the woman I am becoming now.

Because this isn’t just a story about relationships.

It’s a story about what happens when a woman has spent so much of her life being responsible for everything that she doesn’t know how to simply be with someone. And it’s a story many of us are living without realizing it.

Sometimes the relationship isn’t the only thing that needs healing; the woman inside the relationship does too.

And so I find myself here, asking a different question now.

Not: How do I make this relationship work? or How do I keep this? or What more can I do?

But: Can I love someone deeply without abandoning myself in the process?