Love Is Never Synonymous With Sacrifice

If our relationship is synonymous with a constant struggle and makes us feel insecure and unhappy, maybe we should rethink our situation, since love does not have to be a sacrifice

When did love begin to be considered a sacrifice? A constant struggle of sweat and tears in which a relationship continues through effort. This belief is what has caused many people to put up with things in their relationships that, seen from the outside, seem inconceivable.

Depleting daily discussions, manifestations of possession where people become objects instead of human beings. All of this has led us to the well-known “suffering for love” and, currently, there are still people who consider that love is synonymous with effort, sacrifice and pain.

When love implies sacrifice

When we consider love a sacrifice, we fall into the terrible clutches of dependency, as we do everything possible to maintain walls that threaten to fall  from time to time.

Our partner begins to be everything to us, to mean everything. However, if we have to make an effort to maintain a love, perhaps, it is better to let go. And it is that, among these sacrifices, sometimes we allow mistreatment in the relationship, that there are disrespect, even infidelity or indifference on the part of the other person.

We humble ourselves, we allow our self-esteem to be trampled and all because we have learned to depend on love, to suffer for it. Because we put love and fight on the same level, and this implies suffering. But suffering never makes us happy. So we are in a vicious circle from which we do not see a possible way out.

Sacrificing ourselves for a relationship, giving 100% when perhaps the other person is not giving even 15% will be like digging our own grave. In the end there will be nothing left of us. We will have given everything, even what we did not have, for a false belief about what love means in a relationship.

If it hurts, it’s not love

Silvia Congost is a psychologist who helps in cases of emotional dependence and has a book entitled If it hurts, it is not love . In it, he exposes various cases where suffering, despair and giving everything for the other end up annulling people and causing their life to become an ordeal.

When love begins to be a true sacrifice, it is important that we rethink the relationship we are in. Perhaps we are suffering because the other person is not treating us well or, perhaps, because we are not treating ourselves appropriately.

Love is respect, it is making the other person better every day, it is passion, it is happiness, it is joy … Love is generous, it implies freedom, trust and allows us to grow.

If love does not have any of these qualities and if it is identified with suffering, pain, bitterness and constant struggle, then we are not talking about love, but about something else.

Let’s open our eyes

Let’s open our eyes so that we can begin to enjoy all the good things that love has and that has nothing to do with suffering, with pain, with striving.

If there is love, it will not take any effort. Things will happen by themselves, without the need to hoard, to go out of our way for someone without taking into account the consequences.

As we mentioned before, sometimes we give 100%, what if the other person gives 15%? We will end up damaged, because there will come a time when we will be exhausted, the relationship will falter and guilt will arise.

Let us not confuse love with suffering in order to immerse ourselves in toxic relationships that will leave us on the ground. Let’s not spend most of our lives going from love failure to failure because we have the wrong idea of ​​what it means to love someone.

It is time to let everything flow and that, if we feel bad about someone, let’s see what needs to change or, perhaps, it is time to put an end to it. Love is there to enjoy it, savor its sweetness and allow us to get our best version.