They said it was love.
The way they checked your phone.
The way they told you what to wear.
The way they made you feel small, just so they could feel big.
They called it love—“I’m just protecting you,” “I just care too much,” “I only say this because I love you.”
But you knew better. Even when you didn’t have the words for it yet, something inside you whispered, This isn’t love.
The Pain They Wrapped in “Care”
When was it the first time you took control instead of caring?
It was probably when someone told me not to go out with them, they are not good like you and I but what he or she meant is not that but I want you all to myself.
Or perhaps it was when they were disparaging your visions, your voice, your body,--and claimed it was honesty.
You were taught to shrink, were you? To shrink so they would not be angry with you. So as to grin in order not to tell you that you were too emotional. And to apologize even when it was not you who smashed anything.
Dark affirmation: They didn’t love you wrong because you were hard to love. They loved you wrong because that’s all they knew how to givel
Do you remember when mom said to stop crying? Or when your father has said, Toughen up? You were taught when you were young that love was something that you had to work to get.
So when you met a person who sent you after it, you said, This is not new. This must be love.
But it wasn’t. It was repetition. It was the reflection of your younger self who was not able to undo what was done by someone.
You remained, because you were hoping that, by means of a little more effort, they would at length take notice of you. That their fury would be soothed by yours. You would have taught them how to remain, that your loyalty.
But love that requires you to inflict pain upon yourself to sustain it is not love, it is gradual suicide.
I once knew a woman who loved a man who dimmed her light.
He told her she was “too much”—too emotional, too loud, too passionate. So she quieted herself until her own reflection looked like a stranger.
Every time she laughed too freely, he frowned. Every time she cried, he sighed.
He called it love. She called it home—until one day, she realized homes aren’t supposed to hurt.
She left quietly. Not with anger, but with exhaustion. And in the silence that followed, she remembered her own voice.
That’s when she learned: real love doesn’t silence you—it amplifies you.
Love Isn’t Supposed to Hurt Like That
Love is not meant to get you nervous to reply to a message.
It does not mean to cause you to question your value when they leave.
It is not meant to cause you to fight with ghosts or to apologize to exist.
Love must be safety, not survival.
You must have your heart breathing it there.
But I know why you stayed. You did not want to leave because it felt like you had failed. You remained because you caught a glimpse of the person they might have been. You remained because you believed that love was meant to inflict some pain.
It’s not your fault. Nobody informed you that good love does not require your pain as a demonstration.
You were right.
It was not love but pain in promises.
It got bits of you, but it did not get your power to love once more.
And then one day, when you find peace without demanding that you should be shrunk, you will know that love has never been intended to incarcerate you, but to liberate and emancipate you.
And pardon yourself thou knowest not. Pardon yourself that you remain too long.
You didn’t fail—you learned.
And now, you know better.
Now, you know what love is not.
And you will have love one day soon that is like a warmness after winter- quiet, soft and safe.
The true love does not puzzle you. It does not do more harm than good.
Real love whispers, “You can rest now.”
And when you finally do, you’ll remember what your heart always knew:
They called it love.
You called it pain.
You were right.
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