You Can’t Make Them Love You

My Art Swap Collaboration Story: A Lesson I Learned About Love

After my daughter was born, I did everything I could to try to make a relationship work with her father. I moved across the state to live with him on his father’s cattle farm in the middle of nowhere. I left my family and friends and emptied my savings account to completely gut and remodel an abandoned trailer to make it livable. We made a business trailer a house and I made that house a home: staying home to care for our daughter, baking bread from scratch, learning to can, cooking everything from scratch, and even a valiant (but failed) attempt at gardening. I took my new role very seriously — I was all in. I tried hard; probably too hard.

I went above and beyond: even using my daughter’s nap time to feverishly paint the entire bathroom — everything had to be just so in my new life. I was dedicated to making my best attempt at staying sane in the smallest town I had ever seen: a town with only a gas station and Dollar General. We had one car — mine — which he used to drive to work. I was isolated but ignored it, instead focusing on the high of riding on the ATV with my daughter, petting the cows and feeding the chickens. On the weekends, I drove 30 minutes to the closest grocery store — the highlight of my week — there I could actually see real, adult human beings in their natural Walmart habitat.

We had this amazing kid together and now we had this cozy little home. I was willing to do us for life and can genuinely say I loved him. But the house wasn’t enough. The newly painted bathroom and freshly baked bread wasn’t enough. I gave my everything and I wasn’t enough. Love wasn’t enough. You can’t make someone love you in return — and that is the hardest lesson I have had to learn about love.

It seems like common sense: You can’t make someone love you. But I was in complete denial when I began to see the feelings weren’t mutual. I felt like I could will him to love me — by the sheer force of my feelings. And, surely, if my feelings weren’t enough then my actions had to be.

Look, see me loving and being loved by your family.

Behold, me, the mother of your child, mothering and nurturing so well.

I won’t complain when you drink a bit too much. I won’t nag you like those other girls — I’m a cool girl. The kind of girl you could spend your life with.

After denial came anger and disbelief. Why don’t you love me? What else do I have to do? What is wrong with me? You can’t do any better! This is as good as it’s going to get— why can’t you see that?

I went to greater extremes. He drove home drunk, totaled my car, I forced myself to see the positive: maybe this would open his eyes. Maybe he would change. Surely a brush with death will reveal to him how brief life is and push him to cling to us, commit himself to being a better partner and father. He won’t be so irresponsible again, not when the full weight of what he just experienced hits him. I told myself, “Be understanding. Be gracious. Don’t you want your daughter to have a father?”

But nothing changed. Even when I told him I had to go. Even when I left, he didn’t care. There was no fight; there was no passion. There was no plea. I couldn’t convince him to care or control his feelings towards me. I made a fool of myself trying to prove my value to him. I felt like I had wasted my time and love on someone who could care less. The truth is: you can can only try so much. You can fight hard but, if you are fighting alone, you can’t win the battle. I had given until I was empty, trying to be loved by someone else, when I really needed to be loving myself.

This piece was written as part of an Art Swap collaboration, featuring beautiful original art by Jessica Jungton.

To see the art that I made for Justine Bronson’s piece here:

Other pieces in this project: