At the start, attraction is effortless. Independence is admired. A busy schedule is interpreted as ambition. A full life suggests confidence and self-worth. Ironically, it is often this very independence that draws two people together. Yet once the relationship is confirmed, expectations begin to creep in. Text messages must now be answered immediately. Missed calls require explanation. Time spent at work is no longer respected but resented. What was once admired becomes a source of suspicion.
The contradiction is striking. We fall in love with someone because they have a life of their own, and then quietly expect them to abandon it for us. Affection hardens into ownership. Availability becomes proof of love. But love that demands constant presence is not devotion; rather, it is insecurity dressed up as care.
Much of this confusion stems from how loosely we use the word “love”. A well-known teaching story illustrates this sharply. A young man once spoke at length about how deeply he loved his partner, listing her beauty, her charm, her intelligence; in fact, everything about her, he insisted, was perfect. After listening patiently, an older mentor asked him a single, unexpected question: did he love even the parts of her that were unpleasant, awkward, and undignified? The question halted the young man mid-sentence. For the first time, he was forced to confront the difference between loving an ideal and loving a human being.
That moment captures the essence of unconditional love. To love another fully is not to love their highlights while tolerating the rest. It is to accept the entirety of a person - their habits, their weaknesses, their inconsistencies - without attempting to edit them into a more comfortable version. Living together, sharing routines, and navigating responsibilities inevitably reveal what courtship conceals. Habits irritate. Differences surface. Compromise becomes unavoidable. Faced with this reality, many attempt to “improve” their partner, mistaking control for concern. But love cannot survive as a renovation project. To truly love another is to recognise that they are imperfect, and to accept that we are too.
Support, then, is not about reshaping a partner into an ideal. It is about allowing them the freedom to grow without fear of being diminished for it. Loving someone means standing beside their ambitions, even when those ambitions demand time, space, or attention that is not centred on us. It requires the maturity to understand that another person’s fulfilment is not a threat to our own.
Kindness plays an equally decisive role. Many relationships fracture not over major betrayals, but over minor disagreements that escalate through pride. A long day, a careless remark, an unreturned message, and just like that the conversation becomes a contest. Who was right? Who started it? Who should apologise first? In choosing to win the argument, many quietly lose the relationship. Kindness is not weakness; it is the willingness to let go of ego in favour of connection.
Love also demands generosity of spirit. Sharing a partner’s happiness without comparison or jealousy is no small task. Yet relationships often sour when success is measured competitively rather than celebrated collectively. When one person’s growth is perceived as the other’s loss, love turns transactional. At its healthiest, love multiplies joy rather than rationing it.
Love endures not because it is dramatic, but because it is deliberate. It is the daily choice to remain generous when it would be easier to withdraw, to allow another person their freedom without interpreting it as rejection, and to place connection above control. In a world impatient with discomfort and suspicious of endurance, this may seem unfashionable. Yet love that survives is rarely loud. It is shaped quietly - by restraint, by trust, and by what we choose not to demand from the people we claim to love.
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-
