3 Ways Love Works (and Doesn’t Work)
Love is powerful, but it doesn’t work the same way for everyone. At its core, love tends to show up in three main ways:
1. Like Water
There is always enough. You don’t run out. You can pour it into as many cups as you want or keep it all to yourself—but you control the flow. Some people get a full glass, some get a sip, and some don’t get any at all. But the source? Endless.
2. Limited Supply
Think of love like pieces of paper. You only have a few. If you’ve given them all away and someone new comes into your life needing one, you can’t create more—you have to take from someone else. This kind of love feels scarce. It can create jealousy, competition, or the belief that if you love them, you can’t also love me.
3. Transactional
This is love as a trade. A transaction. “I love you if…” or “If you don’t, I’ll take my love away.” Many of us grew up in this kind of love—where love had to be earned. Good grades? Love. Messed up? Love withdrawn. Hello to my fellow ‘80s and earlier babies—I see you.
Because the majority of people out there have not been loved in a healthy way (hello trauma….. Of course you are hurting me because you love me, of course after you abuse me you tell me you love me etc) we don’t really know what love is or even how to love in a healthy way. Due to this? I believe that you CAN love someone not really loving yourself but you can’t do it in a healthy way.
Do you have a co-dependent relationship? (Codependency is an excessive emotional or psychological reliance on another person or when two people have unclear boundaries such that it's difficult to know where one person ends and the other begins. The latter is known as enmeshment.)
Do you have a service based relationship? (constantly serving the other person but NOT in a healthy way and not 2 sided)
Do you have no boundaries? So you could be easily taken advantage of?
Pretty please spend some time figuring this out for yourself. You are worth loving. You are being loved. But in a healthy way.
