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Writer's pictureSophie Jones, Ph.D.

I Love You, But...



I’m leading out this series, I love you, but to illustrate how we must be better about recognizing when someone loves us before Nina chokes me for not posting. I was chit-chatting with my dude, Smart, and he said something that made me have an Arsenio Hall moment. You know, the stuff that makes you go, hmmm. That might be before some of ya’ll time, but it made me think. It was something to the effect that people can love you to the best of their ability but not yours. That mess is deep, and it made me reflect on my husband.

I’m hesitant to say that to him because he is quick to tell me about what I haven’t done or am doing, regardless of the fact that my circumstances have changed. I take medication, go to group each week, and must learn how to live with this David Banner/Incredible Hulk or Jekyl/Hyde thing going on in my head. It’s like, bruh, WTF. I need to be off the drugs to talk to him. I realized that he loves me for what he thinks I should be, should do, should know, should act, based on a previous me. He acts like he’s there for me but always finds an opportunity to jab at me.


We live up the street from one another and still don’t have time for one another. Honestly, I don’t have time for him in this state. I’m involved in this blog and working on a book. He doesn’t ask about it, discuss how he can help, or play an effective role in supporting me through this change in my life. He’s quick to tell me what I should or need to be doing but hasn’t walked one day in my shoes. He doesn’t care for my group members and is uninterested in that part of my life. I get questions like, how does so and so look? HUH? He quick to say, “I love you.” When I hear it, I hear, I love you, but, and that is the point.


A person doesn’t love you in that case. They love themselves more and love what you can do for them and how you make them feel. Ask anyone suffering from a mental disorder what happened after their behavior changed. That love is fleeting as hell. Those people don’t think there is a change in her behavior, but that’s not her. Something must be wrong. No, they focus on how it makes them feel, and that is it. He is waiting for me to reemerge to come back and claim he’s been there for me, or we are meant to be together, but his ACTIONS have shown me that is not true. I have been in at least five strong arguments with Nina. Well, I was fussy, and she stared at me because she knew something was wrong and I was poorly expressing myself.


Love reduces chaos. Felicia’s blog hit home for me because love is the reduction of chaos. It isn’t me always on my toes or having to watch everything that I say. I’m getting to an age where love is not an intense feeling of deep affection. It’s more of a deep comfort and a reduction of chaos. When he says he loves me, I say yeah, okay. He says he will keep saying it so that I know, but he is saying that for him, not for me. If he loved me, we would be communicating differently. A person that loves you will share the stage with you and not want to hog the light. My new friends have shown me what love can be, and it ain’t this!


Soph

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