💔 Love shouldn’t hurt
Yet sooo many stepparents beg to differ.
I’m a sucker for Valentine’s Day — always have been, even back when I was a cynical angsty teenager. For many years, I even sent out annual valentines instead of Christmas cards.
What can I say? The romantic in me just loves to celebrate love.
My personal approach to love has always been a no-holds-barred, arms-wide-open kind of love. If you’re in, you’re in for life... unless you choose to leave. Or unless you destroy me so completely that even I have to admit that whatever love was once there is no longer salvageable.
My husband Dan came really, really close to meeting that second definition. 😬
Even though he’s the nicest guy in the world with the hugest, gentlest heart. Even though he quite literally will not hurt a fly. (He catches them in a glass to put them outside instead.) Even though I really really love him and he really really loves me, our early years together well and truly wrecked me.
To be fair, Dan never intended to hurt me — yet he did. Again and again and again. Every time he let his daughter ignore me. Every time he chose his ex’s happiness over mine. Every time we had plans as a family and he canceled them to appease his ex or his kid, disappointing not just me but my own kid too, adding another layer of hurt.
As months stretched into years of this, I had to very seriously weigh whether I could survive a love that also included this much pain.
Valentine’s Day is named for St. Valentine, who also happens to be the patron saint of beekeepers of all things. You wouldn't think that bees and lovers go together… but then, love is strange. Folklore has it that a soon-to-be-married couple could walk through a swarm of bees before their wedding to prove their love — if neither of them got stung, then their love was meant to be.
We think a love that’s true shouldn’t hurt. If someone really loves us, we won’t get stung, no matter how thickly those bees swarm.
Sometimes love does sting though, as all too many stepparents have learned the hard way.
So what’s the answer? Do we just keep braving that bee swarm, praying for the big payoff someday? Do we adjust our expectations to include a sting here and there, hoping that the hurt can be lessened if we just brace ourselves better?
For me, the solution was to redefine what I believed about love. Love had to include supporting myself as well as sacrificing myself. I had to learn what boundaries I needed and stick to them. I had to find a way to love Dan that wouldn’t leave me full of resentment.
And as for Dan... well, he had to meet me halfway.
Because yeah, love shouldn’t hurt — but even at its best, love still takes work. From both partners.
Dan & I made it through, although I can’t say there weren’t stings along the way; we’ve survived thousands. But for us to survive, we both had to be willing to change and put in the work. What began as honey between us had soured into something inedible, and we had to commit to finding our way back to sweetness. Together.
As Valentine’s Day approaches, I wish you sweetness too, along with the celebration of the reason we’re all here in the first place: couplehood. Choosing to join our lives with this person — our person — and being willing to navigate the reality of steplife together, stings and honey and all.
xo
Oh, and PS — if your partner isn’t quite on board with the whole “meet halfway/work together” thing, Dan & I put together a little something to help with that:
