You cannot change things by loving them harder.
It sounds almost cruel at first because love, at least the kind we’ve been taught to believe in, is supposed to be powerful or transformative as it’s a kind of force that softens hearts, fixes what is broken, and bridges what feels impossible. So when something starts to fall apart, our first instinct is not to let go but to love harder.
Then, we become more patient and try to be more understanding and forgiving than we ever intended to be. We also excuse what we once said we would never tolerate and stay to hold conversations that drain us, all in the name of love. Then we tell ourselves that if we just give a little more time or care or a little more of ourselves, something will change.
But here is the uncomfortable truth. Some things do not actually change, no matter how deeply you love them. It is not because your love is insufficient, nor is it because you didn’t try hard enough but that love was never meant to be a tool for transformation in the first place.
Love is not a lever you pull to move people into better versions of themselves. It is not a currency you spend in hopes of earning consistency, respect, or reciprocity. Yet, we try and we love people to the point of exhaustion. We love until we are unrecognizable to ourselves, all while waiting for something on the outside to finally reflect what we have been pouring in.
But love does not work like that. It reveals, it does not repair. It shows you what is there, clearly, sometimes painfully, but it does not rewrite it. There is no way in hell you can love dishonesty into honesty, or love absence into presence, etc.
At some point, the effort stops being noble and starts becoming self-abandonment. Now that is where the shift must happen, not in how much you love, but in where you choose to place that love. Because the same energy you use to hold onto something that isn’t changing could be used to hold yourself together instead.
To hold yourself and choose clarity over confusion and self-respect over silent endurance. “You cannot change things by loving them harder,” but you can change your life by loving yourself enough to stop trying.
