When you love someone, you place them on top of your list of priorities. That doesn’t mean everything else in your life becomes irrelevant. It doesn’t mean you ditch your closest friends because your person is the only one worth hanging out with. It doesn’t mean you slack during work hours because you are too distracted to pay attention anything other than your love.
It doesn’t mean you give up on your dreams and sacrifice your morals in order to make room for your person.
It means you spend time with them. It means you take their feelings into consideration. It means you care about their happiness as much as your own.
When you love someone, you cannot spontaneously choose the option that makes your day better without sparing a thought about them. You cannot recklessly make selfish decisions that are going to impact them as well. You have to take the time to think about whether accepting a coworker’s invitation to grab drinks and coming home late is worth making your person worry about where you have been and ruining the dinner they have waiting for you. When you love someone, there are tough decisions you are going to have to make on a daily basis.
However, putting someone on the top of your priorities list doesn’t mean they are your main priority every single day. There are going to be days when you have an important meeting and cannot text them back when they have an urgent question for you. There are going to be weekends when you leave them bored and alone because you promised a friend you would go out for a birthday dinner.
Your person cannot expect you to drop everything for them. They cannot expect you to give up your entire life for them. They cannot expect you to put them first every single day because that is not the way the world works.
But, generally, you should be placing them first. Generally, you should care about their happiness above all else.
When you love someone, you never make them feel like second best. You avoid staring at your phone during dinner while they are trying to have a conversation with you. You avoid spending too much time away from them. You avoid hurting their feelings with short answers and cold shoulders because seeing them cry would make you cry.
When you love someone, you promise to take good care of them, even if that means you are going to have extra work to do. You plan dates. You answer texts. You show up on time. You surprise them with tokens of affection. You never feel like you are wasting energy on them. You feel like your energy is being put to good use.
When you love someone, you make sure they are appreciated. You make sure they are acknowledged. You make sure they feel like an important piece of your world because once they start to wonder how much you really care it won’t be long until they leave.
Thought Catalog