Not Safe To Be or Not To be

In any meaningful relationship, one of the greatest acts of love is letting the other person be exactly who they are—and who they need to become - it means letting people be themselves from your own understanding of lack of control.

Love isn’t about shaping someone into your ideal version of them. It’s about supporting their growth, even when it takes them in unexpected directions.

People don't need permission to be themselves.

To be still within yourself, walking tall; to be still with others, moving in step with the spirit and kindness that guides you both—not always in agreement, but walking still. 

Whether you’re a husband, wife, partner, or label-less companion, your role is not to control or to critique, but to support. To help. To challenge and to listen. Especially when life gets complicated. This isn’t about parenting—it’s about intimacy, about adult partnership. If all of that comes across preaching - well, okay...up to you how you take it in and make it make it make sense for you.

And when things go wrong, as they inevitably will, it’s important not to turn your partner into a scapegoat. Never burn your partner - always protect them from the shitty world that wants them to fail. Blaming them for your stalled dreams or missed goals doesn’t solve anything. In fact, it creates unnecessary resentment.

It’s Really That Simple

The healthiest way to avoid toxic blame? Just be helpful. In every way you can—be kind, be supportive. This isn’t complicated.

Because here’s the truth: if someone falls short of their own potential or happiness, that responsibility belongs to them. Unless you're intentionally undermining them (and if you are, the relationship is doomed anyway), their path is theirs to walk.

Support doesn’t mean agreeing with everything. It means standing by someone even when you don’t fully understand or even like what they’re doing. Love without control is support. And support looks like this: be kind, be nice, be helpful. Offer them what you would want from them.

Take It Too

Equally important is having a partner who lets you chase your dreams. You won’t always agree on everything. That’s not the goal. The real goal is maintaining kindness, even during disagreement. It’s knowing when to step back and when to lift up.

Remember: this isn’t a competition. There are no points to score. Keeping score in a relationship is toxic. No one wins when someone else is losing.

In a healthy relationship, both people get to shine. Both people are allowed to grow—even if it’s in different directions.

Fantasy Versions

Commitment isn’t about the fantasy version of someone—the version you imagined while reading books or watching movies. It’s about the real, evolving person in front of you.

If who they are doesn’t align with who you want to be with, that’s okay. You can walk away. You can also choose to stay single and fulfilled. But if you do stay, and they’ve got your back—even if they don’t like what you do—that’s a gift. Love isn’t liking every part of your partner. It’s supporting the parts they need you for.

To borrow a well-worn cliché related to male-female dynamics—while doing my best to remain politically sensitive—I recall an old saying (source unknown): “A woman often hopes her husband will grow into the man she imagined. A man, on the other hand, hopes his wife will never change from the girlfriend he married.” In other words, a woman marries a man hoping he’ll change. A man marries a woman hoping she never will. Both are eventually disappointed.

Struggle Deeper

There are exceptions, of course. If your partner is dealing with addiction—alcoholism, drugs, gambling, abuse—those are serious challenges that go beyond normal relationship dynamics.

Still, I deeply respect those who hold space for someone in pain. That kind of love is quiet and steady. It doesn’t judge. It doesn’t say, “Oh great, you’re drunk again,” or “We haven’t had sex in weeks.” It just shows up. It says: I see you. I care. I’m here. But it never makes the pain about themselves. And that takes a rare kind of strength.

Expectations

Forget what you’ve been told about what love should look like. The moment you stop trying to fit into someone else’s idea of love or success, you’ll start finding your own.

Pretending to be someone you’re not just to keep a relationship going? It burns energy you’ll never get back. Eventually, something snaps. That bandwidth, when stretched too far, breaks. And with it, all those agreements you thought were solid start to dissolve. Authenticity is oxygen in a relationship. Without it, nothing survives. What you can expect is to be expected to have no expectations at all - let go the belief that coupling cannot cohabit with individuals but instead are now a binary interpretation of exitance.

My Own Journey

I’m 61 now. I was married for 25 years, and with the same woman for 28. That’s a lifetime in many ways. And yet, if I’m being truly honest, I didn’t often feel seen—or safe—as my full self. I don’t think she did either. We tried for years. We showed up, did the work, raised a family, built a life. I loved her. I respected her. But we were never really in sync at the core. And over time, that disconnect turned into something quiet and painful.

There were parts of me—tender parts, curious parts, the parts that wanted to explore emotions, sexuality, spirituality, the deeper questions of life—that felt unwelcome. When I opened up, when I was vulnerable, I often felt dismissed, sometimes rejected altogether. And that hurt. A lot. I kept showing up, hoping maybe one day she’d meet me there. But I don't think she could. And now, from where I stand today, I imagine she might say something similar about me.

We were polite. Sometimes mean. We compromised. Sometimes stubborn. We got along on the surface. The deeper meaning was below the surface. Felt not visible. But we were slowly drifting apart because we weren’t being real with each other. I know I wasn’t. I was afraid. Afraid of conflict, of abandonment, of being too much or not enough.

So, I held pieces of myself back. 

I wore a version of me I thought might be easier to love. I wanted to be acceptable to her—to be loved by her, to be the one for her. The one she would do anything for. She held the highest expectation of all: that I was not allowed to have any expectations of her. That’s a high standard—too high for a man like me. You can keep that up for a while, but eventually… you start to disappear. I made choices, I created habits, I compromised my values and beliefs. I did it - not her.

Secretly—and it's no secret anymore—she had a superiority complex (she still does today) which is hardly a good match for someone struggling with an inferiority complex. It was the opposite of a balanced, yin-yang, Ikigai kind of thing one might hope for.

Eventually, it ended. And I think it probably needed to. We spent so many years trying to become what the other person could accept, when maybe what we really needed was the courage to be who we truly were—even if that meant shaking the familia foundation of the life that we built. Even if it meant things wouldn’t last.

I regret not having courage sooner. I regret not creating space for both of us to be fully human—messy, complicated, evolving. I see now how I contributed to the slow unraveling of “us.” Not through cruelty, but through silence. Well, maybe sometimes we were both cruel. Through pretending. Through not insisting on the truth.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s this: love can’t survive where people don’t feel safe to be themselves. And pretending to be someone you're not—to keep the peace, to stay loved—it costs too much.

Aging Teaches

By your 50s or 60s, you stop pretending. What you see is what you get. And honestly? That’s liberating. I’m not saying I’m perfect. I drink more than I should sometimes. I like things that lift me.

I spend far less time caught up in navel gazing or comparing status in relationships—now, I focus more on mutual respect, equality, and kindness. I’ve jumped out of a plane once, and yeah, I’d do it again. But the real point is—when you finally become yourself, you drop the weight of performance. That’s freedom.

And to those who are younger—25, 27, maybe even 35—it’s okay if none of this hits yet. That’s fine. But just know this: neutrality is dangerous. Emotional limbo is lonely. So pick your side. Your own side. Not a political side, not a movement—just your truth. And yes, it’ll change over time. Let it. That’s growth.

Okay Be You

When people leave, they take pieces of your story with them. But they also leave behind gifts—lessons, scars, strength.

They teach you that your worth isn’t defined by who stays. They remind you to build a life that isn’t reliant on someone else’s presence to feel meaningful. They challenge you to be someone who can sit in solitude and still feel whole. And slowly, piece by piece, you rebuild.

New friends will move in and out of your life. Or maybe you deepen the connection with yourself. You learn to appreciate the ones who do show up—and stop chasing the ones who don’t. You chase your own life. You stop living in the shadow or chase other’s dreams.

Not everyone is meant to stay. That doesn’t mean the love wasn’t real. It just means the story ended. After all this time, I’ve learned this: I’m not for everyone. And that’s okay. When I’m fully myself, not everyone likes me. But the people who do? They see the real me. And that, finally, feels like enough.

Literally and Figuratively

So, if you’re in that place—missing someone who left, feeling like you’re the only one who’s hurting—know this:

You’re not alone. You’re not broken. And you will be okay.

Some people teach you how to hold on. Others, how to let go. Both are necessary.

And

you

Stand tall.

Walking still.

Let's go.