05/31/2026
Love Is Not a Rescue Mission.
Rule 12: Show up for those who show up for themselves.
I know what it feels like to love someone harder than they love themselves.
To be the one doing the therapy, reading the books, making the appointments, having the conversations — while the other person watches from a comfortable distance and calls your effort “pressure.”
For most of my love addiction, I confused availability with love. If I was willing to go to any length for someone, that meant I loved them deeply. If I stayed when anyone else would have left, that was proof of my loyalty.
What it was actually proof of was my fear.
Because here’s the thing nobody tells you about that kind of loving: it’s not really about them. It’s about the story you’re telling yourself — that if you love them enough, fix them enough, stay long enough, something will finally shift. That the love will land. That they’ll turn around, see you, and become who you needed them to be.
It never works that way. People change when they decide to. Not when you decide for them.
Rule 12 is the one that made me look at every relationship I’d ever chosen and ask: who was actually doing the work here? And in almost every case, the answer was humbling.
I wasn’t choosing unavailable people because I was unlucky. I was choosing them because they kept me busy. If I was focused on saving them, I didn’t have to focus on saving myself.
This rule isn’t about giving up on people. It’s about understanding that your love cannot do the work that someone else’s willingness has to do. You can love someone completely and still be the only one in the room trying.
That’s not a relationship. That’s a rescue mission. And rescue missions don’t end with two people healed. They end with one person exhausted.
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A question worth sitting with:
Are you showing up for someone who isn’t showing up for themselves?
📚 *Becoming My Own F-ing Soulmate* — available now. Link in bio.
