This is a MASSIVE question, and one which I couldn’t possibly fully answer in this piece. But, I will speak to it from a certain angle.

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‘Love’ is the question; “what can I bring to another?” Not “what can I get from another?”

‘Love’ is the question; “what can I gift, give and share with another, that would potentially bless their life in the most transformative, healing, and nourishing ways?”

‘Love’ is taking the time to really understand what the other loves, how they receive love, and once it’s all in alignment - figuring out how to bring that to them as reverently and as consistently as possible - if you want to.

If you don’t want to - maybe it’s not love. Maybe it’s trauma bonding?

‘Love’ is NOT about what you can get from another. Nor is it about your projected desires of how they should change, in order to be more of what you think they are supposed to be, in order for you to feel ‘met’.

The more important question in this scenario would be - “why do I consistently find myself choosing to pour love into people who are unable to fully receive, meet, see and understand it.“?

Sure, this can be a healing experience for the other if they are ready to begin letting more love in - but if you are feeling under-met and not understood, your pouring will exhaust you.

If you find yourself exhausted in your attempt to love - I invite you to listen deeper and take accountability. Is it possible your motivation is not actually of love? but rather a trauma pattern fighting to be fed?

If so, then this is an act of being un-loving towards yourself. This is a foundational leak which must first be healed. It must receive absolute priority.

In partnership, you cannot blame another for not meeting you.

That’s all on you.

This is your responsibility.

You are the one who chooses to be there with that person.

Love is loving another, as they are. In their holistic totality - without shaming or blaming them for what they are not. For what you would prefer them to be.

You don’t get to decide what another should be. This energetic will end up closing them even tighter and pushing them away over time.

For someone who consistently finds themselves in relationships like this - I would fathom an assumption that somewhere in your being it possibly feels more familiar and comfortable for you to be in a disempowered pattern, where you get to feel like the more developed one.

So that you don’t have to face your own shadows - so that you can hide certain corners of your own conditioning which you fear being exposed by the light - Where it can remain the others fault. And how they must do more ‘work’ to have the relationship finally be healthy. Rather than exposing your own brainwashing? Possibly? Maybe?

What is one of the most common ways that a person justifies this pattern? By attempting to convince themselves and others that they are such a ‘stand for love’, and that this is why they stay in dysfunctional relationship dynamics. I call bullshit on this virtuous cop-out. It’s an avoidance tool. Which is fine if that’s where you are at. How can you shift this? Do you even want to shift this? There is no right or wrong answer.

The truth can be a terrifying thing to face - especially if we have hidden in the dark for years. And that is ok. I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. It can be deeply confronting to see the manipulation of our own actions. Love has got you, if you allow it.

This is not an invitation to attack, blame or shame yourself. This is an invitation to allow the light of love to expose you to yourself, so that you can raise your capacity to see - which in turn raises your capacity to love; yourself and others.

Generally, to move into empowerment, we must spend the time loving through all our disempowerment.

We can all do this, if we choose to.

In conclusion:

Another’s work is none of your business. Even if it is your partner.

Your partners life-path has absolutely NOTHING to do with yours.

Sure, you may spend a lot of life beside one another, hand in hand - you may be deeply merged and intertwined in life, but, your partner is not actually yours.

Their way does not belong to you.

Their being owes you nothing.
(Just as yours owes them nothing.)

They belong to Source, to God, to Tao. You loving them is respecting their individual sovereignty, and understanding that they were not gifted this life in order to make you happy, or to do the ‘work’ to meet you where you think you should be met.

‘Love’ is not a currency exchange for something of equal value - but rather a universal law which is self-sourced through our own relationship with our creator. We then get to consciously choose where to channel it, through LISTENING to where that current of love feels drawn to bless. Then we follow.

Loving another, is learning how to consistently turn them, support them, kiss them, and caress them back to God!

Much love
Chris