You Cannot Love a Person into Being Someone Else

Dear ones, I know how much you want this to be true. To think that if you just love someone hard enough, they will transform. They will be happier, kinder, their rough edges that leave you on eggshells will soften, they will want you as much as you want them. Your ‘love’ will become some sort of vital, transformative magic.

Can true love change a person?

Deep breath. Because there are some essential truths we need to talk about here.

1. Love does not involve high level expectations.

Love is a big word, so let’s make it clear here we are not talking about movie and novel fantasies of romance, or the lust-filled obsession that advertising has trained your brain to believe is ‘love’.

No, we are talking about proper, functional relational love. And this grounded sort of love is not an endgame, it’s not a goal, or a process from A to B. And it certainly does not have to be ‘earned’. There are no hoops for the other to jump through.

It’s a field of acceptance. It’s a place where we can say, I see and accept you and create a place for you to be yourself and grow and you see and accept me and create a safe space for me to grow. Expectations don’t exist in this field, other than the…