When you love someone, you want to be special to them. You want them to care about you and you want to make a difference in their life. You want to please them, to give them the kind of love you feel they deserve. You want to love them better than the last person they were with and you want them to love you just the same. But these desires all create conditions.

You gradually start feeling like the other person is telling you, “if you want to be special to me and have my love you must meet my conditions. The moment you fail to meet those conditions is the moment you will no longer be special to me.”

And so you spend your time rearranging your life to meet their conditions. There are parts of you that you hide, others you lie about. Some you shove under your bed and in the closet. Your dreams and passions that don’t meet their likes are downplayed and watered down while you slowly die inside. They tell you that they love you for who you are. Mixed messages. Do they even know who you are? It doesn’t matter. You love them. They love you. Love conquers all. You can talk about it later. All that matters right now is not losing them.

The moment you decide that you want to please the other person is the moment you chain yourself to the wall.

When you allow yourself to be chained, you give up all of your freedom to be yourself and pursue your own life.

Would you tell the one you love, “you are free to pursue your own interests and behave in whatever way you like?”

If you think that is too idealistic, think about it from another perspective. Isn’t that what we all want to hear from everyone in our life?

What if your love interest starts to develop romantic feelings for someone else? Do you tell them they’re free to pursue that?

When you’re in a relationship that meets your needs then you aren’t going to have the desire to pursue anything with anyone else. If you’re unhappy, then your mind will wander toward what you’re missing.

People are afraid to lose that kind of love, even if they are unhappy – sometimes it feels better to be unhappy than to be alone. And when problems arise, feelings aren’t shared. Everything is kept inside. They build up and up… until finally one day they come out and it seems like a shock to you when you find out things aren’t working out for the other person.

But you see, if you have open and honest communication to start with, you’ll never end up in a situation that will blindside you like that. But it’s so hard to be open and honest because everyone is fixated on gaining and holding onto the love of the other person at all costs.

“I love you for who you are” has a silent tagline of, “as long as you meet my expectations.”

The moment I learned how to love people for who they are, as they are, regardless of what they offer me or bring into my life… I saw them in a different way. I learned to love them as I love the sunset for its beauty and not for the warmth it gives me.

They no longer belong to anyone, but everyone and no one.

If you love someone, allow them to be free, to be themselves. Encourage them to pursue their own interests and live out their dreams.