Learning to Love Without Losing Yourself: A Journey from Experience

For a long time, I believed love was about putting we before I. I thought it meant always choosing the relationship over myself. Even if that meant bending, shrinking, or smoothing out parts of who I was. I thought sacrifice was the measure of commitment.

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Looking back, I see how beautifully naive that was.

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Because love, as I’ve come to understand it, isn’t just about putting the other person or the relationship first. Not without also honoring yourself deeply. When we prioritize we without really holding space for I, we slowly start to lose the essence of who we are.

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And losing yourself—it’s not a sudden fall. It’s a gradual, almost imperceptible drift. You don’t notice at first. But over time, the parts of you that matter most—the things that light you up, your values, your needs—begin to feel distant, almost foreign.

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You start bending yourself to fit. You begin to forget what you truly need and love.
And that’s when resentment quietly creeps in.
It’s subtle but powerful, and before you know it, you feel disconnected—not just from your partner, but from your own life.

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In those moments, your need for validation intensifies. You find yourself seeking approval more and more, your own voice grows faint, and your boundaries start to blur. Your personal growth stalls because you’re spending all your energy holding the relationship together by sacrificing your true self.

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I’ve been there. And from that place, I learned something crucial: sacrificing yourself to keep peace or love alive doesn’t help anyone in the long run.

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It might comfort your partner, or keep the relationship going for a time, but it comes at a cost. It chips away at respect—both theirs and yours. It drains your vitality and dims the love that should be a source of life, not depletion.

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What I’ve come to understand—through hard lessons and honest reflection—is that healthy love always begins with I.

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It starts with consistently checking in with yourself: your feelings, your boundaries, your dreams, and what you’re truly willing to give.
Boundaries, I’ve learned, aren’t walls to keep love out. They are the foundation that lets love grow strong and real.

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But here’s the beautiful balance: love isn’t about I alone. It’s about I and we—together, intertwined, both cared for.

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When you nurture your own strength and truth, the relationship doesn’t suffer. It flourishes. It grows—not from sacrifice, but from strength.
That’s the kind of love that lasts. The kind that feels like home.

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So if you find yourself bending too much, losing your voice, or feeling disconnected from who you are, know this: You’re not alone. And there’s a way forward—one where you don’t have to lose yourself to love.

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Love deeply.
But love yourself first.