When Love Isn't Enough

You’re the only one still rowing.

Congratulations, you’ve achieved Advanced Level One-Sided Relationship™. Population: you, one paddle, and the faint echo of your dignity doing a belly-flop overboard.

You send the good-morning and good-night texts. You plan the dates, remember the anniversaries, start the hard conversations, and swallow the hurt when they’re “too tired” or “need space.” You deliver entire PowerPoint presentations titled “Why I Am Not, In Fact, a Doormat – Slide 47 of 312.” 

They nod, say “I hear you,” then float back to Planet Me (population: one, zero Wi-Fi required, emotional rent perpetually overdue).

You keep giving more because you believe love is measured in effort, patience, and how quietly you can hurt. You’re running on caffeine, spite, and the delusion that if you just love hard enough you’ll unlock their secret “reciprocate” ending. Spoiler: the game is rigged, and the final boss is wearing Patagonia and emotional laziness.

Every swallowed complaint, every cancelled plan, every forced “it’s fine” is another brick in a wall you built alone. One day you realise the relationship isn’t struggling - it’s already dead, and you’re the only one still trying to apply CPR.

Self-interrogation time (mirror + drink mandatory):

• If I stopped managing this like a Tamagotchi on its last heart, how fast would it face-plant?

• Who is this relationship actually serving right now?

• If my best friend told me this story, would I hand them tea… or a lighter and gasoline?

• Am I staying out of love, or because I’ve invested so much that leaving feels like admitting I flushed years down the toilet for a participation trophy?

• On a scale from “healthy attachment” to “hostage with Stockholm syndrome,” where do we sit today?

Love isn’t a solo performance with an audience scrolling TikTok. 

When someone truly loves you, you don’t need a spreadsheet to track their effort. You just feel it, like strong Wi-Fi. No dancing in the kitchen with your phone held aloft.

So put the oar down. The boat was already sinking; you were just the only one pretending it was a cruise.

The Flip Side: Living Almost Entirely in Your Own Head

You love them. You really do.

You notice every micro-shift in their mood, replay conversations at 3 a.m., and build elaborate mental cathedrals about how you’ll fix everything… tomorrow. Next week. After you’ve found the perfect words that won’t make you sound needy, dramatic, or - God forbid - human.

Meanwhile, in the real world, your partner is drowning in emotional labour while you draft a 400-page Notes-app dissertation titled “Why I Haven’t Texted Back Yet: An Autopsy.”

You feel the guilt. It’s loud. But guilt is safer than the terror of opening your mouth and actually risking rejection or big feelings in real time. So you stay bunkered in your skull, convinced that thinking really hard counts as effort. It doesn’t. Thinking is free. Showing up costs something.

You’re not doomed. You’re probably anxious, avoidant, maybe emotionally constipated. But “I’m wired this way” is a hall pass that expires the moment someone you love starts disappearing because of it. Wires can be rewired. Therapists exist. Baby steps still move you forward.

Both sides, one truth

One person is slowly vanishing under the weight they carry alone.

The other is slowly vanishing into the maze of their own mind.

Both feel trapped.

Only one is actively hurting the other while they “figure themselves out.”

Questions for everyone (no dodging):

• Am I showing up with my hands, not just my heart or my head?

• If my partner treated me the way I treat them, how long would I stay?

• Am I using “I’m complicated” as permission to stay comfortable while someone else suffers?

• When was the last time I did something loving that was slightly uncomfortable for me but made their day lighter?

Love isn’t enough on its own. It needs hands that reach, voices that speak, and the courage to be a little uncomfortable today so nobody gets destroyed tomorrow.

Overthinking isn’t a personality - it’s a pattern.

Carrying everything isn’t devotion - it’s a habit.

Both can be broken.

One side needs to stop carrying the relationship on their back.

The other needs to stop hiding behind “I’m processing” and actually do something—anything—before the person they love finally puts the oar down and rows away for good.

You both deserve better. Start building it. Together, or apart. But start, okay?

The right person won’t make you choose between loving and being yourself.  I heard somewhere out there is someone who thinks bringing you coffee in bed is foreplay. Go find them!