The Unbearable Discomfort of Allowing Ourselves to be Loved

And why you’re stuck in a situationship with a person who isn’t texting you back

As a relationship therapist, I am all-too-aware that it is a difficult thing for us to allow ourselves to love and be loved.

The act of learning to be cared for and to care for someone doesn’t come to us innately in the way movies have taught us to expect. Loving is a practice. And I can’t say it any better than bell hooks has in her seminal text, All About Love.

the first of many bell hooks references you will encounter here

More people experience trauma within the webs of their own families than in natural calamities, so of course, our maps and templates for loving need some serious recalibration. Even if you come from a warm and loving family, the experience of receiving acceptance and care without judgement, pressure or effort may feel foreign or uncomfortable.

If you’ve been wondering why you’ve been falling head-over-heels for people who won’t fully commit to you, this might be why. People in committed relationships find ways to stave off love too - you may find yourself focusing on flaws in your partner(s), the relationship or worrying about its future rather than sinking too deeply into the feeling of being cared for.

Several therapists have spoken about this through the lens of insecure attachment and how our early childhood relationships shape how we expect and allow ourselves to be treated in adulthood and this is an important perspective to consider. But if you’ll allow me my ‘not like other therapists’ moment, we can also consider the possibility that perhaps some of these tendencies are fundamentally human. Anne Carson writes about love beautifully through the prism of philosophy and Greek literature in her book Eros the Bittersweet. She notes that the moment of ‘ideal desire’ depicted in most art and poetry is not the beloved and lover reuniting but the quest for love, the fervent pursuit of desire and not desire actualised.

She writes -

“To be running breathlessly, but not yet arrived, is itself delightful, a suspended moment of living hope.”

Desire is delightful, an ‘exquisite tension’ and makes for beautiful art. But it doesn’t make for the greatest relationships because it is - by its nature - a solitary pursuit. It is characterised very much by absence (of commitment, emotional availability, texts). You’re not arriving home on solid ground, you’re suspended mid-air, breathless and hoping.

the softest reminder that while this post focuses on romantic love, friendships and community are essential spaces for us to learn how to love better

So if you want my thoughts about your situationship, I’d suggest gently turning your attention away from them (I know, I know, it’s so much easier to get swept up in the waves of longing) and getting curious about what comes up for you when you are consider a person who is present, attentive, willing to commit.

Just as it is a practice to learn to stay with joy in a world that always wants us to move to the next task, it is also a practice to learn to stay with the feeling of being loved by someone who is present, available, already yours.

We may be comfortable swimming in the heady throes of desire, but unable to stay lingering by the solidness, the unwavering stability that is love.

We’re curious about your thoughts and always open to differences of opinion. So even if you’re an attachment theory purist who is mortally offended by my sacrilegious take, I’d love to hear from you in the comments!