For many of us, love was something we learned to do.

We learned to give.
To help.
To notice what others needed and respond quickly.
To smooth things over.
To hold things together.

Somewhere along the way, love became tied to effort.

Being good.
Being useful.
Being needed.

Measurable.

And while this kind of love can look generous and selfless from the outside, it often comes with a quiet cost on the inside.

We disappear just a little.
We ignore our own signals.
We stay longer than we should.
We give more than we have.

Not because we’re weak—but because we learned that love required it.

What I’m slowly unlearning is this:
Love is not meant to cost you yourself.

When love asks you to abandon your body, your boundaries, or your truth, something has moved out of order. And often, we don’t realize this because overgiving is so deeply praised…especially for those of us who are caregivers, helpers, or the steady ones others rely on.

Many of us didn’t learn love as presence.
We learned love as responsibility.

We learned that if we carried enough, managed enough, or showed up consistently enough, love would stay. Safety would stay. Belonging would stay.

But love that depends on self-abandonment isn’t sustainable.
Eventually, the body protests.

Resentment grows.
Trust erodes, both in others and in ourselves.

This is where the idea of rightly ordered love becomes important.

Rightly ordered love doesn’t mean loving yourself first or loving others less. It means including yourself. It means recognizing that every relationship flows best when responsibility rests where it belongs and when no one is carrying more than their share.

Love can be generous without being draining.
Supportive without being rescuing.
Present without being self-erasing.

For me, this has meant noticing the subtle moments where I start to disappear in the name of love. The moments where I override my own signals to keep the peace. The moments where giving feels compulsive rather than spacious.

I’m learning that love doesn’t need to be proven.
It needs to be inhabited.

When love is lived from presence instead of performance, trust has a chance to grow. And when trust grows, the nervous system softens. The body exhales. Relationships become less about managing and more about meeting.

This month, I’m exploring what it means to let love be simpler—and more honest.

To let it rest.

A reflection to sit with:
Where did I learn that love required effort?

And what might change if love didn’t ask me to disappear to belong?

-Elizabeth