Member-only story
The Secret to Loving Someone Without Losing Yourself No One Talks About
Why the person you become while loving matters more than who you love.
We don’t talk enough about the silent erosion of self that happens in the name of love.
You meet someone. You fall. You give.
At first, it’s beautiful. The giving feels like a high. Like proof that you’re not broken. Like finally—finally — you’re needed.
You cancel plans for them. You bend a few values, then more. You laugh at things that don’t even feel funny. You agree to things that tighten your chest. You start to shape-shift. Just slightly.
You tell yourself it’s compromise. You tell yourself this is what love should look like.
But it’s not love if the version of you that exists in it is slowly vanishing.
Most people don’t lose themselves in love overnight. It happens in the thousand small moments.
You Give Away the Keys to Your Life One Tiny Yes at a Time
I once dated someone who loved a version of me I didn’t recognize. The version that didn’t mind sleeping in, didn’t care about deep work, didn’t need long stretches of silence to recover from the world. I wanted…