Why Love Isn’t Enough: What Healthy Relationships Really Need
Love is beautiful. But it’s not a relationship strategy.
It can inspire healing, but it’s not a substitute for safety, communication, or growth. In this post, I explore why love alone isn’t enough to sustain healthy, fulfilling partnerships—and what actually is. From personal stories to shadow work, this is a tender and fierce look at what happens when love meets our wounds… and what else we need when love just won’t cut it.
🖤
A Map Through the Shadowlands of Love
❓What’s Love Got to Do With It?
🫀 Love is Total Acceptance
🌱 Relationships Are for Growth and Healing
🕯️ Love Shines a Light on our Dark Places
🩸 Love and Shadow Work
🕊️ Let Love Off the Hook
📋 What’s On Your List?
Let’s stop asking love to carry what it was never meant to hold… 🫀
What's Love Got to Do With It?
Love is a great foundation for a relationship—but it isn’t enough.
We need other things too. Like understanding. Respect. Safety. Security. Care. Connection. Desire. Excitement. Freedom. Adventure.
The list goes on.
One of my clients recently expressed frustration because they weren’t getting what they needed in their relationship: quality time, attention, connection, sex. And what made it even more confusing?
They knew their partner loved them. Deeply.
I’ve been there too—many times.
After several years in an abusive relationship with an alcoholic, I felt completely drained by the cycle. He’d get drunk. He’d abuse me—physically, sexually, emotionally, verbally. I’d threaten to leave. He’d beg me to stay, because he loved me so much. If I insisted on leaving, he’d tell me he’d hunt me down and kill me. Because I was his. And no one else could have me.
Then came the apology. The declarations of love. The promises to change.
He never did.
We repeated that cycle for nine years.
I felt defeated. Resentful. Drained. Miserable. Depressed.
Homicidal.
I literally fantasized about setting our bed on fire—with him in it.
I despised him. And what he demanded I tolerate in the name of “love.”
At one point, I attended a workshop at a battered women’s shelter. We made a list of what we truly wanted in a relationship. My list included:
Respect
Trust
Understanding
Safety
Security
Fidelity
Compassion
Healthy sexuality
Communication
Companionship
You know what didn’t make the list?
Love.
🖕🏼❤️ Fuck love.
It just wasn’t enough.
I left that marriage three days before my 28th birthday.
So...
What’s love got to do with it?
Love is total acceptance
Love Is Total Acceptance
My favorite definition of love is this:
Total acceptance.
To love someone is to accept them as they are—flaws, wounds, quirks, and all.
But just because we love someone—or they love us—doesn’t mean we have to tolerate abuse, neglect, or dealbreakers. Love doesn’t mean self-abandonment.
Often, we tolerate those things because we have our own shit to work through. And these situations reflect what’s still unresolved inside us.
Relationships Are for Growth and Healing
We enter relationships carrying unresolved wounds and conditioning—from our families, our cultures, our religions. That’s our baggage.
And relationships? They become the sacred container where that baggage gets unpacked.
Relationships are invitations for growth and healing.
They help us confront what’s unhealed.
They give us an opportunity to liberate ourselves from outdated beliefs, painful patterns, and societal conditioning.
But only if we’re willing to do the work.
Love Shines a Light on Our Dark Places
Stay in a relationship long enough and love will shine a light on the things we’ve hidden from ourselves.
It’s a bit like a soul burlesque show—our shadows slipping off their silk gloves and revealing themselves, one layer at a time.
Love brings our fears, our behaviors, our childhood wounds, our conditioning, and our buried beliefs to the surface.
Not to hurt us—but to be seen, met, and healed.
Love and Shadow Work
Love nudges us—sometimes gently, sometimes with a kick in the gut—toward our shadow work.
There’s nothing quite like love (or the fear of losing it) that will catapult us straight into our emotional underworld.
And I say this as a romantic at heart.
I love a good Bollywood movie ending. The couple meets, falls in love, but they’re engaged to other people. Obligations. Tradition. Drama. 😢 And in the end?
Love wins. 🥳
They do the inner work. They challenge the systems. They choose love.
Yay for love! 🎉🩷
And sometimes…
Love doesn’t win.
My first husband loved me. Very much. But he had his own monsters. Like my mom, he became an alcoholic as a teen. With his own history of trauma. He couldn’t face it when we were together—so he drank. He lashed out. He abused me.
On the day I left, he sincerely apologized. We both cried. It was heartbreaking—to witness his pain, and to finally honor my own.
It wasn’t the first time.
It wouldn’t be the last.
Because here’s the truth:
Wounded people hurt other people.
If we don’t want to keep hurting others—or ourselves—we have to go into the dark.
We have to face the monsters.
Love isn’t the problem.
The unresolved trauma is.
Let Love Off the Hook
We put too much pressure on love. We ask it to do the heavy lifting that belongs to healing.
“If my mom loved me, she’d stop drinking.”
“If my husband loved me, he’d change.”
“If they loved me, they’d show up differently.”
But love isn’t the problem.
Love doesn’t fix what someone is unwilling or unable to face.
Sometimes people don’t do the work.
Sometimes the monsters win.
Sometimes love fades—or gets buried beneath the wreckage of what we’ve left unhealed.
Just because someone loves you doesn’t mean:
They’ll meet your needs.
They’ll love you the way you experience love.
They’ll know how to behave in a way that supports your wellbeing.
These are skills.
They are learned. Practiced. Chosen.
When we’re committed to our personal and relational growth, we begin the real work:
Facing the shadows. Unlearning the conditioning. Building the skills that let love become a force for connection—not just confusion.
Love alone isn’t enough.
But love can be a beautiful foundation—a motivator, a light, a balm—when we choose to do the work.
So let love off the hook.
And look at what else you need.
What's On Your List?
Respect?
Honesty?
Communication?
Safety?
Erotic connection?
Understanding?
Shared values?
Spontaneous laughter?
What else do you need—besides love—to feel whole in your relationships?
Contact me and let me know:
Love, Heidi
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🔥 Ready to go beyond love?
If this post struck a chord, it’s because deep down… you already know:
Love isn’t enough. Not without truth. Not without healing. Not without growth.
You deserve a relationship that feeds your soul—not just your hope.
If you’re ready to explore what real connection looks like—one built on clarity, communication, emotional intimacy, and embodied sovereignty—then let’s talk.
🖤 Book Your Secret Rendezvous here:
A no-pressure, deeply honest conversation to explore what’s next for your heart, your healing, and your relationships.
