"You can't just sit there and put everyone's life
ahead of yours and think that counts as love."
It just doesn't and it's so true and so important.
I know people out there that think - truly deep down believe - that putting someone else's wants first, before their own, is proof of love. Intense love. Unconditional love. Forever love.
I believe, however, that if you only do what the other wants. Only do and try and compromise so that you can be whatever or whoever you think the other person wants you to be, that you are not showing love, but showing them a mirror. For love to truly work, there needs to be give and take. There needs to be two individual people with differing points of view who know themselves well enough to know where their own lines are. Once you start compromising yourself... once you start going against your own gut - especially in the name of love - there aren't two people any longer as one of them fades and turns into a mirror.
In some ways it's easy to love a mirror because everything you see is what you want, but in another way - it's nearly impossible to keep loving a mirror because there's really nothing there. It's hallow. It's just a mirage. Nothing is there to hold on to, to push against, to test things with.
Knowing your own limits and your own mind and heart and wants and needs certainly doesn't mean you can't and don't compromise with those you love. Of course you give things a try just because they want to try it - or at least seriously consider it - but you come at it as your own advocate first and foremost. If your goal is to make your relationship stronger, making your partner happy is certainly part of that. But doing things that make you unhappy can't be part of that, because that just means you are no longer part of the equation. It's just your partner and their reflection. I'm not sure what that is, but I don't believe it's an example of love - neither of yourself or your partner.
