Love Isn’t Enough

We grow up on fairytales. On songs that tell us love conquers all, on films where two people fight through chaos and it all magically works out because they “truly love each other.”

But in real life? Love alone doesn’t hold a marriage together. It doesn’t pay the bills. It doesn’t soothe emotional immaturity. It doesn’t make bad habits go away.

When you marry someone, you don’t just marry the person standing in front of you on that day — you marry their habits, their coping mechanisms, their level of emotional maturity (or lack of it), their debt, their family baggage, their communication style. You marry all of it.

And too often, we fall into the trap of marrying potential.

Potential sounds romantic: “He’s not there yet, but I see the man he could become.”

But here’s the truth: you are not their therapist, and you are not their saviour. You are supposed to be their partner. If they can’t meet you where you are now, hoping and waiting for who they might be will only leave you disappointed — and exhausted.

The right person feels like safety. Like home.

The wrong person feels like slowly disappearing while still smiling for the photos.

If you don’t know who you are before you get into a relationship, you’ll just end up living inside someone else’s story, losing pieces of yourself to fit their script.

So if you’re single — take your time. Don’t rush just to tick a box, don’t let loneliness push you into arms that don’t know how to hold you properly.

And if you’re married and it feels hard — don’t ignore the hard. Sweeping it under the rug doesn’t make it vanish, it only grows until it trips you up.

Regret isn’t only about failed marriages. Regret is about the work you didn’t do on yourself before you said “I do.”

Love should add to who you are, not erase you. Because being in a relationship isn’t about carrying someone who refuses to grow up. It’s about carrying each other when life gets heavy, being one another’s safety and refuge, and finding strength for the days when the other is weak.

But for that to happen, you both need to be at the same level of maturity, walking in the same direction. Otherwise, what you have isn’t partnership — it’s parenting. And no amount of love can make parenting a grown adult sustainable. That’s not romance, it’s slow erosion.

Burnout doesn’t come from loving too much; it comes from loving someone who won’t take responsibility for themselves. A real partnership is built with someone who can regulate their emotions, who can listen as much as they speak, who knows when to take the lead without controlling, and who trusts you to do the same.

Because marriage — at its best — is not two people clinging to each other for survival, but two people choosing, every day, to walk side by side. Sometimes one will stumble and the other will steady the weight, but the balance returns because both are committed to carrying the load together.

C, the point is… love isn’t just a feeling, it’s a practice. It’s about choosing someone who can stand beside you as an equal, not someone who needs you to carry them. Don’t marry potential. Marry reality — because love isn’t meant to be a rescue mission, it’s meant to be a partnership.

And if you want a love that lasts, choose someone who is ready to practice it with you.