Being Chosen Isn't the Same as Being Loved

Someone choosing you doesn't automatically mean they're loving you well.

Valentine's Day has a strange way of making relationships look very simple.

Flowers arrive. Dinner reservations fill up. Social media becomes a parade of couples holding bouquets and writing paragraphs about how lucky they are.

And maybe they are.

I hope they are.

But I've been thinking about how much importance we place on being chosen.

Will they ask me out?

Will they make it official?

Will they choose me instead of someone else?

Will they stay?

There is so much relief attached to finally hearing yes that sometimes we forget to ask what happens afterward.

Because being chosen is a moment.

Being loved is a pattern.

Someone can ask you to be their girlfriend and still make you feel alone inside the relationship.

Someone can put your picture on their phone, introduce you to their family, and remember Valentine's Day while consistently dismissing the things that matter to you.

Someone can stay.

And still not love you well.

I think that's difficult to admit because leaving someone who doesn't want you feels understandable.

Leaving someone who says they do feels more complicated.

You start questioning whether you're asking for too much.

They're here.

They chose you.

Shouldn't that be enough?

Maybe that's why we tolerate things inside relationships that we never imagined tolerating while we were single.

We become so grateful not to have been rejected that we stop noticing the ways we're being neglected.

And neglect isn't always dramatic.

Sometimes it's being the only person who initiates difficult conversations.

Sometimes it's repeatedly explaining why something hurts and watching nothing change.

Sometimes it's knowing everything happening in their life while realizing they rarely ask what's happening in yours.

Sometimes it's sitting beside someone and feeling lonelier than you did before you met them.

There doesn't have to be a villain.

That's another thing I'm learning.

Not every relationship that needs to end contains a terrible person. Sometimes two people care about each other and one of them still isn't receiving what they need.

Love isn't measured only by intention.

It has to be experienced.

You should be able to feel it in the ordinary parts.

In whether they listen when you've had a terrible day.

In whether they remember what matters to you.

In whether you can say something difficult without being punished for bringing it up.

In whether they protect your trust when you're not standing beside them.

In whether your life becomes something they participate in instead of something they occasionally visit.

Flowers are lovely.

I like flowers.

But flowers cannot communicate for someone.

Dinner reservations cannot create emotional safety.

A Valentine's Day post cannot repair the other 364 days of feeling unseen.

Grand gestures are easy to recognize because they're designed to be noticed.

Love is often quieter.

It's the text asking whether you got home safely.

It's noticing when you're overwhelmed before you have to announce it.

It's making room for your dreams without treating them like competition.

It's knowing which parts of you need gentleness.

It's choosing you again when nobody is watching.

Maybe that's the distinction I've been trying to understand.

I used to think being chosen was the finish line.

As if once someone picked you, the uncertainty was over.

But relationships don't stop requiring choices after two people decide to be together.

You keep choosing.

Honesty instead of convenience.

Conversation instead of avoidance.

Respect instead of winning.

Your partner's trust instead of the temporary thing that might threaten it.

Love isn't one choice.

It's hundreds of small ones.

And I think the right person makes enough of those choices that you don't spend your relationship wondering whether the first one still counts.

So tomorrow, enjoy the flowers if you get them.

Eat the chocolate.

Wear the dress.

Go to dinner.

Celebrate love loudly if that's what makes you happy.

But when all the Valentine's displays disappear and everything goes back to normal, ask yourself a quieter question.

Not simply, “Did they choose me?”

Ask:

“Do I feel loved here?”

Because those answers aren't always the same.

Words of Wisdom

Being chosen may begin a relationship, but it isn't enough to sustain one. Pay attention to the hundreds of small choices someone makes after they say they want you, because love isn't proven by claiming a place in your life. It's proven by how they care for the heart they asked you to trust them with.

Until next Tuesday.

— S.