I keep mentioning in my blog that I knew I could love Dan better. And on today, the day of luuuuuuvvv, I had a flashback as to why. I was actually sitting around thinking about why I love Dan and that I’m so damn lucky. I was thinking about all the different ways Dan has loved me, shows me love and how many times he had to adjust that love over the last five years.
Everywhere Dan turns, I’m surprising him with something new. There’s always a new race I want to run, a new place I want to go, a new way I want to grow, a new demon from my past……regardless Dan chooses to love me. I’m one lucky girl. There was a long time in our marriage that I didn’t love Dan very well. I didn’t know how to love myself at all at first. Slowly I grew in confidence in my ability to adult myself and my love for Dan grew. My ability to communicate through his language of love became easier. But then…..it never really grew. We got more comfortable. We were and remain best friends. We still went on dates. We still had sex. We still want to spend all of our time together. We looked like the normal happy couple on the outside but we were just stuck.
I lost weight and that sparked things for a while. Now I think I was just putting all my energy into other things for a while. As I learned to love myself a little more, again, I learned to love Dan a little more. Love became easier. And then it got stuck.
I remember standing in the kitchen talking with Dan. We really were talking, not yelling, not arguing, just talking. We both agreed that we felt unloved by the other person as much as we should . We both agreed there was a problem. We both had no freaking idea what was wrong. I said “I feel like I’m loving you as much as I know how to do.” What he said I don’t think I’ll ever forget. “I know.” He said. “I think this is as much as you can love. I know I’ll always love you more and I’m ok with that.” I was speechless and I knew he was absolutely right. This was as much as I knew how to love. I was doing the best that I knew how to do. I was scared it wouldn’t be enough. I knew he deserved more.
Dan has loved me whole heartedly and fully since day 21. I know because he told me so. I still remember, 16 years later, where I was standing when I heard him say it for the first time. I’ve already written a lot about how our love and sex has changed over time but when it comes down to it, Dan has always loved me better than I have him and I think I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to catch up. It took me longer to understand love. It took me longer to accept myself as I am and be strong enough to ask someone else to accept me too.
I don’t know how many times I can say this but, if you don’t love yourself, you’re not loving the people around you. They can tell. Dan didn’t mean to call me out in that conversation last year, but he did. He said exactly what I needed to hear. I’m pretty sure my eventual response was, “I think I’m kinda fucked up.” Since then, a year ago, I’ve healed so much. I healed old scars, and added some new ones both physically and emotionally. I think 2019 might have been the hardest year of my life. But in the end, I turned out so much better.
Valentines Day 2020, I know I’m loving Dan better than ever. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to love Dan as much as he loves me but now I’m trying everyday. He loves me so freely that it makes me jealous. But I’m learning. Everything I learn and heal about myself makes me love myself more. Dan is teaching me the same lesson that he has for the last 16 years: that love can be unconditional.
You deserve to love yourself so damn much that love just pours out of you and to those around you. You deserve to silence your demons and hear the song in your heart. Everyone around you that’s trying to love you, deserves it too.