Redefining Love: The Freedom to Love Authentically
9th reflection on Love : To love is also to learn not to impose your own way of loving.
What if the secret to lasting love lies not in changing the other person, but in embracing their unique way of loving? Discover how viewing relationships as a consultation can lead to deeper connections and true understanding.
What often unfolds in love is not so much an inability to love, but a tendency to demand that the other person loves exactly as we do.
Many relationships don’t fade due to a lack of love. They wither because each person is busy trying to teach the other how to love.
A relationship is a bit like seeing a doctor.
When you go to the hospital, do you tell the doctor how to treat you?
Usually, you don’t.
Even if you have medical knowledge, even if you’re an expert in the field, the doctor is generally the one who decides on the method. They are the ones who diagnose and propose the treatment.
Your role is to clearly express your symptoms, your pain, your expectations, your boundaries, your needs, your history, and even your budget. A doctor doesn’t treat you at random; they expect specific information and a form of compensation in return.
Building a relationship can be understood as a form of medical consultation.
Today, many are desperately searching for the “ideal” partner.
Sometimes, that person is already by our side, but we don’t see them because they don’t fit the image we’ve created.
Often, that image doesn’t even come from us. It stems from our beliefs, our wounds, or what society has ingrained in us.
Women sometimes try to define what a “real man” is. Men do the exact same thing.
The question then becomes:
Who can truly define what a “real man” is?
And who can really say what a “real woman” is?
Perhaps no one truly can.
These definitions seem to vary from one person to the next. Ask a thousand men what the ideal woman is: you might get a thousand different answers, all seemingly valid in their own way. It’s the same for women; each has her own vision of her “ideal” man.
The trouble often begins when these beliefs start guiding our choices.
When we look at someone, we sometimes stop seeing the actual person and see a mental checklist instead. We catch ourselves trying to tick boxes rather than discovering a human being. Even after committing to someone, we often hope they will eventually match our imagination.
But sometimes, that “someone” is nothing more than a projection.
From that point on, we try to fix the other person. To teach them how to love “the right way.” To tell them what a man, a woman, or a partner ought to be.
But what if, instead, we viewed the relationship as a medical consultation?
You don’t tell a doctor how to do their job. So why try to define how the other person should love?
You don’t tell a doctor how to make a diagnosis. So why not let the other person love in their own way?
In a doctor’s office, you lay out your pain with honesty. You speak without shame, without a mask. You say what you feel, what you need, what you want to change.
Love can work in a similar way.
We could start by expressing our expectations clearly, daring to show ourselves as we truly are—without forcing it, without pretending. And above all, we could give the other person the freedom to love us according to their own logic, their own sensitivity, and their own pace.
Sometimes, it’s true, we don’t like the way a doctor works. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they are bad at what they do.
It just means they aren’t the right fit for us.
In those cases, we change doctors.
We don’t cling to a white coat that makes us feel uneasy.
I believe in love, it can be sometimes like that.
Sometimes, leaving becomes a possibility when someone cannot respond to what you feel.
Not to hurt them, but because you respect what you feel and you refuse to betray yourself.
And let’s not forget: in a hospital there is often a form of exchange. Not necessarily material, but emotional, energetic, human.
Loving often seems to involve giving something of oneself.
So yes, building a relationship can look like consulting a doctor: when you try to be authentic with yourself, when you know what you want, when you respect what you can offer, and when you leave the other free to love you as they are, without imposing a role they didn’t choose.
And perhaps keep this in mind:
If the other is your doctor, you are theirs too.
Because in love, it seems we don’t really heal others— we mostly learn to understand them.
Author’s Note
This text highlights a common tension in relationships:
the tendency to want the other to love according to our own benchmarks.
What appears here is less a lack of love than a disconnect in the way it is expressed and understood.
The medical analogy serves as a reminder of a simple point:
we can express what we feel without imposing a way of being on the other.
One path might be to learn to distinguish what we expect... from what the other is actually capable of offering.
Tomorrow in the Evening Mirror, we’ll delve deeper into the concept of relational projection, revealing how our expectations shape our connections. You'll uncover practical insights on recognizing your emotional language, navigating differences, and fostering genuine understanding in your relationships. Join us as we explore how to transform potential misalignments into opportunities for growth and stability.
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I’d like to hear your thoughts:
How have your expectations of love influenced your relationships, and what have you learned from those experiences?
feelingsundefined, here’s the article we’ve talked about
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Odel A.
Who can truly define what a 'real man' is? The answer to that question is only the person I am ready to let into my life once I am certain that I am truly myself. That person, and no one else.
It’s exactly as you say, it’s just my answer to the question, and in a way, it’s very similar to what you’re writing about. Sometimes, or rather quite often, we focus on the other person, on the partner, instead of looking into ourselves or into a mental mirror. We shouldn't be ashamed of that mirror because only then—when we realize that we aren't perfectly ideal either, and that this is precisely what makes us as real as we can be. Only then are we ready not to change others, but to accept them. Thank you 🫶
Thanks for that lovely point of view — it freeing, lighthearted — that supports both autonomy and authenticity...