You Can’t Be Sure of Love, But You Can Choose Safe Relationships

Stop looking for certainty and assess safety instead.

If there’s one thing that I’m sure of, it’s that we can never be quite sure of love. We can fall in love with someone, and they can leave. They can decide not to love us back, or they can fall in love and then one day, for no apparent reason, fall back out of it. We can, despite our best intentions, fall out of love.

People are unpredictable, and life is even more so.

That fact can leave us frozen in fear. It’s easier in some ways not to love — to live life taking as few risks as possible in hopes that the fates, the Universe, God, or what have you will overlook us. If we have no audacity and attempt nothing, perhaps we can make it through this world unscathed.

That’s fear talking because life puts a mark on all of us. None of us get out of it alive, and no matter how safe we play it, we are bound to get hurt. This doesn’t mean we should live without a healthy respect for consequences, but it does mean that avoiding love will not avoid hurt — no matter how much we might tell ourselves that it will.

“I know that’s what people say — you’ll get over it. I’d say it, too. But I know it’s not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won’t forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him.” ~Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

I loved with my whole heart.

I loved all the good in a person and every flaw. I loved him with my eyes open and my heart his for the taking. When the relationship ended, when he decided it should end, I grieved with the same intensity as the love. I grieved wholly, and it seemed that the pain — like the love — would not end. It left me with the certainty that love will never be a sure thing. Someone loving us back is not a promise or a guarantee. It’s a feeling — and feelings can pass.

But I did learn that there’s something we can be sure of in relationships even if love itself has no certainty. We can assess safety in our relationships and proceed accordingly. I’m not referring to physical safety alone, although that’s essential. I also mean that we should be emotionally safe in relationships. Safe to be ourselves. Safe to express our feelings. Safe to share our thoughts, secrets, and traumas.

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” ~Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves

We’ll never be safe or fully protected from feeling hurt.

Loving someone else is painful. We’re always at risk of disappointment, disillusionment, and the accidental and purposeful hurts that accompany our humanity. With all that being said, we can make sure the person we’re with is a person who is trying to be safe for us. Even when they fail, they keep trying. That’s what emotional safety looks like.

The person I loved was safe in so many ways. He was safe in all the ways but one. I lacked security in the relationship. I wasn’t looking for a guarantee or a marriage proposal. I didn’t need promises. I needed reassurance, and when I reached for it, it wasn’t there. When I asked for it, it was brushed aside. I just needed to know that he was still in it with me, that he still wanted to share his life with me for however long we could, in whatever form that might take. Simply being in the relationship still was not enough. I needed the words. I needed to know that I wasn’t in love alone, and the fact that he couldn’t clarify that was answer enough.

I began to realize that it wasn’t safe to be wholly myself. I was always hiding my shadow side to make room for his. I couldn’t share my full self with him because it didn’t feel safe while the reassurance was missing.

I’m not assigning fault. Sometimes, we love someone who just doesn’t share that feeling or wants the future that we do. He wasn’t trying to keep me in a place of anxiety or insecurity. I imagine he was doing the best he could — just like me. While it was painful, the relationship was never a guarantee even if he had provided all the reassurance I needed. I could not be sure of him, but I could be sure of this one thing: At some point, the relationship was no longer safe for my heart — a fact I ignored for too long.

We can’t count on people staying forever.

No one can promise that life won’t change them in some way that makes them unknowable to us. We can only cherish the relationships we have for as long as we have them — and let go of them when they’re done with as much grace and kindness as we can muster. We can’t be sure of love, but we can make sure that we choose to stay only in relationships that feel safe. When the safety leaves, we can learn to leave, too.

I held on for so long while I was breaking. Granted, I was also coping with the symptoms of a chronic illness that decreased my emotional resilience and impulse control and increased my anxiety, insecurity, and rejection sensitivity. I wonder sometimes how much of the breakdown of the relationship was a side effect of struggling with an illness that wasn’t yet fully managed and how much of it was two people trying their best to navigate love and sometimes failing at it.

As much as I wanted to be a safe person for him, it turned out that I wasn’t either. Not in the end. Not in the way that he needed. I remind myself of that sometimes when I want to look only at how he was unsafe for me. When relationships fail, as they often do, the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the stories we tell ourselves. When our feelings are hurt, we can allow ourselves to be unkind and to forget what we once were to each other. We stop being safe for the other person, and perhaps that’s the greatest tragedy of all.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

These days, my medication manages the symptoms of my chronic illness. Trauma therapy helped me heal from many of the triggers I once had. I know that I’m in a healthier place. Now, when I date, I don’t look for guarantees. I don’t believe that promises are written in stone. Rather, I see them as good intentions that sometimes go wrong even when we do everything in our power to honor them.

I cannot be sure that my next relationship won’t end like the last.

I can’t hold myself apart from connection because I’m terrified of the inherent pain of possible separation and disconnection. All I can do is show up, be kind, and make sure the relationships I choose are safe — and leave if I find that the person that I’ve partnered with is no longer interested in being safe for me. If they aren’t trying and my needs aren’t being met, it’s not wrong to leave. It’s never the wrong choice to honor what we need.

It would always have been painful. Relationships that start with such hope but reach unforeseen ends are always going to hurt. We cannot avoid it. But we can be present while the love is there. We can be safe people for our partners. We can love with our whole hearts and grieve when relationships don’t end as we hoped. We can’t be sure of love, but we can be sure of this. We can choose safe relationships and be a safe person inside of them. It won’t guarantee the ending, but it will honor the love for as long as we’re fortunate to have it.