Loving Someone Doesn’t Mean Losing Yourself
"The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself." — Diane von Furstenberg
There's a beautiful kind of love that's all-consuming.
The kind that makes you want to give everything to stay close, to be generous, to make someone feel safe and seen and cherished. And when you have a soft heart, you do this naturally. You show up fully, pour your energy in, and care deeply.
Sometimes, love turns into something else. Something quieter, heavier. Something that looks like caretaking but feels like disappearing.
You start to shrink.
To shape-shift.
To accommodate every need, every mood, every expectation.
You stop voicing your needs because you don't want to be too much. You stop setting boundaries because you don't want to cause conflict. You stop being yourself because it feels easier to be who you want.
And before you even realise it, you've lost sight of where you end and they begin.
This is what happens when we confuse love with fusion when we believe that love means becoming everything for someone else, even if it means becoming nothing for ourselves.
Real love doesn't ask you to disappear.
It doesn't require you to abandon your joy, your voice, your identity.
Real love says: stay. Stay close to yourself. Stay grounded in your truth. Stay honest about your needs, even when it's uncomfortable.
Because when you lose yourself in love, it stops being loved. It becomes performance. It becomes self-erasure, emotionally over-functioning, where you're constantly monitoring someone else's experience while your own needs gather dust in the background.
And that's not a connection. That's codependency.
Loving someone should not come at the expense of loving yourself. It's not selfish to say I need time alone. It's not cold to say That doesn't feel good to me. It's not unkind to say I need to be met halfway.
You are not here to be someone's emotional home while sleeping on the floor of your own. You are not here to be the one who always bends, constantly proving your love by abandoning your boundaries.
Love isn't sacrifice. Love is a sacred space, a space where both people get to be whole, flawed, and honest. It's not control or emotional labour disguised as devotion. It's mutuality, reciprocity, and presence that doesn't cost you your personhood.
So, if you've lost yourself in love before, you're not weak or broken or unlovable. You're learning.
Learning how to come back to yourself without leaving others behind. Learning how to be in a relationship without being consumed by it. Learning how to hold love in open hands, not clenched fists.
And you're allowed to start again, to love differently, to stay soft without folding, to be generous without giving yourself away.
Because loving someone shouldn't feel like losing yourself.
It should feel like coming home to both of you.
Fancy a hangout? Then join me this upcoming Thursday.