Letting go of love

Curious thoughts to love or not to

I ran into a friend the other day, out walking. Years had slipped by, and so much had changed for both of us.

We were no longer with the partners we had back then. Funny, isn't it? How life circles back in unexpected places — two people crossing paths again, now standing alone, yet strangely content in that solitude.

We had once called it love, what we had before. But whatever it was, it was long gone, before the relationships ended.

The spaces in our hearts others once filled, were now quiet, cleared out, maybe even at peace.

Gone were nights spent piling damp tissues beside the bed, nursing bruised hearts and unanswered questions. Life was becoming shorter by the day.

At 56, firmly in our no bullshit era, the lessons had been hard-earned. Turns out, it wasn’t love after all — or not the kind that stays.

I kept walking, promising myself, not to let so much time pass, before the next good catch-up. But the years — they seem to move faster, don’t they?

I pondered.

I Googled.

I wrote some notes.

I let curiosity lead.

At what point do we discover the wrong person, will either - show, you can do this by yourself or realise the right person, will show you don’t have to?

Why can’t we recognise the signs before over investing our savings, time, energy and lives?

I was curious about the space, the moment between what feels like love, tastes like, dresses like and the letting go.

The space when the stars come out and the light switches on.

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A short time later, I was on a long drive west. The space felt endless, it reminded me of where I had recently been.

I had a moment of agonising melancholy.

I pulled to the side of the road. Sat for a while, in the presence of curiosity and an empty heart.

A hallow, new reality, filled the silence.

I watched the moon touch down, the stars come out. I stayed in the stillness, I gave myself permission to notice the arising discomfort under my skin, beneath my chest.

No fiddling with my phone.

No pointless scrolling looking for escape.

I let curiosity take the wheel.

I contemplated.

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I’ve never stopped my love of a full starlit night or waxing crescent, the natural wonders of the universe. Despite thunder storms and lightening strikes, powerless nights filled with darkness. My love of starlit nights has never waned.

I contemplated all the things I’ve loved, the people, the places, the books, food, smells and sounds.

I thought about those, gently creeping under my skin, senses with a stealth softness filled with love.

Real love was soothing, it nurtured and eased the aches.

I recalled the first moments of each child, how my heart continued to expand and create more space, for more love. Regardless of the challenges or loss in parenting, my love has never faded, waned or decreased; if anything it has grown.

At what point does love fade, die or leave?

What does it take, for love to be outgrown or lost?

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Despite growing up with siblings leaving me at the first gate, a kilometre from the house, in the pitch black western sky, I still love camping remotely, still love my siblings and still drive a car to remote places (I now open the gates myself).

In 2024 I left a relationship of 6 years, which began 30 years prior.

He told me on the first day of our meeting in person (8 years after we crossed paths again), post-three decades apart, I was “the love” of his life. He had “always” loved me and “never stopped”. Even describing the outfit I was wearing on the last day he pictured me, leaving on a train.

If it seemed to good to be true, it was.

It wasn’t love.

Infatuation maybe, immaturity more likely. It was never love.

Every time I told the story to someone, how we dated 30 years prior and crossed paths again, it touched their Disney childhood sales pitch on love, tucked inside.

It was a story, just like Disney, a fantasy.

It arrived at a really difficult time of my life and I postponed it for over 8 years, despite persistence on his part. There was doubt, curiosity and with careful manipulation, slipped under my radar. Little did I know, he was still married.

With just the moon and stars, on a remote dusty road as my witness, I asked the hard questions.

How can someone call it love and lie?

How can we feel like it is love and believe them, not once, again and again and again, until we are nearly broken?

Why can’t we identify fake and flawed love, before the harm is irreversible?

When the lights are flashing amber alerts, why do we keep walking straight ahead, into the next red flag?

This wasn’t my first rodeo with a self-centred narcissist, emotionally immature male. It wasn’t the first time I dated someone who needed a mother, more than a partner.

It didn’t hurt any less, having more than 1 experience. In fact, it felt worse.

Did it make me more vulnerable? If it did, how can you call it love, while preying on someone’s vulnerability?

More de-sensitised to manipulation? If I was, how does any human use toxic‘love’ as a weapon of choice, to deceive others?

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I don’t recall any lessons on love growing up, only those I learned with family, friends and dating.

I was baptised into love from movies, Disney stories of helpless females and shining heroes to save the day. I know now, this was never love.

I never read of women who challenged the status quo, no one told me love was any different (although so many existed). In my house, as children, we were “seen and not heard”, 4 girls, 5 women, 1 boy, my brother the youngest.

I was shown, love as a woman was to be quiet, silent even.

Love was to stay in the background, hold the pieces together, patch the holes and never leave.

I was taught love is loyalty, commitment, staying when the going gets tough (strange though, as I live solo & have been independent my whole existence).

I learned from music, heart wrenching lyrics, love could mean so many things (Thank goodness for an English teacher who loved nothing more, than ripping apart the lyrics in search of understanding; creatives have this way of pouring themselves into their art).

I guessed love was more gentle, encouraging, consistent and predictable. Yet just like I know a million dollars exists, I’ve never actually seen it.

In Australia in 2023, there were 48,700 divorces granted. Not that marriage is a symbol of love, not at all, just like this not an essay and marriage requires far too many words, for a dive down the curiosity hole of why it ends.

Romantic love dies.

We stop loving.

We stop when our childhood toxic conditioning reappears in our relationships “if only you’d just shut up”.

When the little girl awakens inside us, her voice quietened for so long, it is difficult to hear about patriarchal temper tantrums, men who know less about love than they do about self care.

I learned from my childhood, love required commitment, loyalty and staying when the going gets tough. This was a lie. It isn’t love. It’s control, power and selfishness.

Sometimes, it’s even stupidity, when it leaves you empty, starting again, when your losses outweigh the wins.

So let’s be clear about a few simple facts about love.

You decide.

Not your childhood experiences or parent’s relationships.

Not your friend’s unsolicited advice, from their own unhealthy experiences.

You decide what love means to you. In any form, with any person or any situation.

This is your heart, your love story. Don’t let others write it for you.

If it starts with a lie, it isn’t love. You’re an object they want.

If it starts with manipulation, it isn’t love. They want you to meet a need they have. It’s about them, not you.

If it includes abuse, taking advantage of your wellbeing, sending you broke, leaving you stranded, it isn’t love, you served a purpose.

You are not someone’s maid.

You are not a grown human’s replacement for a mother they wanted or needed.

You are not their therapist or doctor, to mend their wounds.

You cannot save them, we must each save ourselves.

Projects are not love.

Abuse is not love.

Neglect is not love.

Ignorance, while it may seem bliss, is just ignorance and a grown humans way of avoiding reality. It’s just ignorance.

It isn’t love.

It never was.

Own your love story.

Chalk the unhappy endings up to a nasty lesson in all the things love isn’t and rebound by educating yourself.

Stand upright, let go of the past with both hands and allow room for love to enter.

Begin with taking all the love you gave to others, taken for granted, used and abused, take it back and give it to yourself. xo

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Why does love die?

1. It wasn’t love

   Ah, the #1 reason. What we know of love, we learned from childhood experiences and knowledge. If all you know of love is volatile, abusive, coercive, manipulative and disempowering, this isn’t love, it’s emotional and psychological abuse.

   Trauma bonds can occur when someone forms an unhealthy attachment to someone, who continually causes them harm.

   Friends might comment you are not suited or it was a strange choice, raise subtle concerns.

   However, despite their treatment, the people who know you best commenting, you continue to encourage and support their needs, even while your life is continually slipping backwards. This isn’t love.

   It feels like love, it is a strong emotional attachment, because it can be familiar. However, its foundation is abuse, manipulation and deceit.

2. Poor communication

   Honest, transparent, clear communication is a solid foundation to build a health, loving relationship on. A relationship which begins with dishonesty has its fate written. This takes no gaslighting, no ghosting text and phone messages, being respectful when juggling challenges, impacting on communication. It doesn’t require the complexities of a therapist, it requires honesty, vulnerability and ability to share.

3. Trust

   Nothing like living with someone you can’t trust, with money, with your pets, belongings, to do what they say or with your safety, to destroy, the potential of any relationship. Nothing like dating someone, investing your time and energy only to find out they are married or already seeing someone else, to crush your trust.

4. Infidelity

   Unless otherwise mutually agreed, relationships can take all forms and this is where honesty and trust plays a key role. Communicating clearly your needs to ensure your partner has a choice of whether to continue the relationship or not, takes honesty and respect.

5. Loss of intimacy

   While medical and mental health can impact intimacy, clear communication, trust and honesty, enables your partner to support with understanding. Telling your partner they are no longer attractive, while using pornography or browsing teenagers at the beach, is hardly a good reason to withhold intimacy from your partner. If they up and leave, so they should. Sharing your body with someone is a personal choice and different for each person, for different reasons. In a healthy relationship, loss of intimacy, with emotional or intellectual connection, leads to distance and disconnection.

6. Complacency

   Being taken for granted, failing to nurture the relationship; withdrawing from the love bank more than you are depositing, can lead to emotional bankruptcy. Neglecting your partner, lack of effort to make authentic connection, show interest in their work or what matters to them, can lead to decline in the love barometer.

7. Unhealthy dynamics

   Toxic relationships underpinned by emotional, psychological, physical, sexual or financial abuse can lead to the death of love.

8. Lack of fulfillment

   When relationships begin, some will be comfortable being their true selves, others put on a show, their best self, one they cannot sustain and quickly dwindles. Like throwing out a line, to reel you in and once caught, the honeymoon phase is over.

   Sustaining a relationship takes consistency and commitment to be fulfilled.

9. Clash of values

   Our core values underpin our beliefs around parenting, finances, work-life, relationships. If you meet someone who uses a lot of profanity and it’s something you don’t like or, smoke and you specifically said you don’t like it. Maybe they lie often to people they care about, are deceitful and you hold honesty as a core value. This relationships is doomed to end up on the curb for the bin collection. It isn’t going anywhere.

10. Attraction

    They suddenly begin to view pornography, make comments about your appearance. You notice their social media friend groups is more about appearances and the opposite sex than it is about genuine friendships.

    I once borrowed a guys boxers, that had been left at my house. Only to comment how horrified he was that I would “stretch them” due to being so much “bigger” than he was; despite I had to keep hitching them up as they were far too big.

    You’ll notice narcissists have a very high opinion of themselves. Nothing wrong with healthy self love and acceptance, exhibitionist, not a red flag on its own, put it together with no filter, no sense of social appropriateness, criticism of anyone with a particular body shape or odd questions about women young enough to be their daughters, run! Get out of that relationship.

    The right person will love you, young, old, changed, aging. Love doesn’t come with an image filter and it definitely doesn’t come with saving people from themselves. Self love is one of the most attractive qualities recognised in others. A person who is confident, enjoys their own body, brings their own vibe and without the arrogance of narcissist.

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Healthy love

Love isn’t the toxic cycle of abuse you see in movies.

You don’t deserve to wait for someone to grow up or do you need projects.

You deserve healthy, kind, respectful and reciprocal love.

Healthy love which includes;

1. Respect

2. Trust

3. Honesty

4. Empathy

5. Commitment

6. Celebrates your achievements

7. Consistent

8. Reliable

9. Authentic

10. Open, clear communication

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Dear Love,

You arrive quietly sometimes — a gentle breath between words, the soft silence, in curls on the corners of worn lips before a smile.

You thunder into the room, wild and impossible to ignore, with your demands and need for play.

I see you in the morning light warming the windowsill, clearing the fog, in the way a mother lifts her child without needing to think.

I feel you in hands held tightly across hospital beds and wedding aisles, in texts sent just to say “Are you okay?” and “Get home safe.” In the caring voices of friends, ensuring I know, I am not alone.

You live in the spaces between laughter and silence, in the comfort of hugs, in the courage to forgive.

You are found in patience, to truly listen even when there is no time. I hear you, in the bravery it takes to speak our truth.

You're in every song that makes me close my eyes and feel, in every letter that’s been folded and unfolded a hundred times, in the old ones I’ve held a lifetime to re open, time and time again.

You're the warmth in a shared meal, generous left over offering, the weight of a head resting on a shoulder, the knowing look from across a crowded room, a child’s tight cuddle.

Sometimes I lose you, I forget your shape, your name. Thank you for waiting, tucked into a sunset, a stranger’s kindness, a random conversation in a park on shared interests or a memories that glow in my chest.

You haven’t made this easy, learning your language.

You ask me to grow. You challenge me to hold on, to let go, to begin again, to get up, keep going and try.

Thank you for finding me in all the small places.
Thank you for showing up as a whisper, a roar, a heartbeat.

I know you more each day; in honesty, in trust, in authenticity, when humans are not afraid to be themselves.

With love

Tuls xo

Feeling the love? I’d love a coffee or subscription even more xo