This might save you from one of the biggest mistakes people make in relationships. In two minutes, you’ll understand something most couples never even realise until it’s too late. Let’s go.
We talk a lot about vulnerability these days. So much that it has become a buzzword. Many use it as virtue signalling, pretending it’s a sign of their emotional maturity.
But let’s be honest, showing vulnerability without safety is just self-exposure. It’s dangerous.
The only way vulnerability becomes safe is when it’s met with responsibility. When the person who receives your fears and failures does not use them as leverage. When they don’t twist your openness into a form of control.
This is exactly what I spoke about last week in the newsletter. If you’re new here, go check it out.
What I mean by all this is that, in a romantic relationship, love is not just sharing yourself. It’s entrusting yourself, and that’s a very different thing.
Why Trust Feels So Risky in Today’s Culture
We live in a culture of clapbacks and receipts, of public shaming and “don’t let them get away with it.” And even worse, we’re taught that relationships are a kind of game. That love is a performance of strength. That if you let someone get too close, they’ll use it against you.
And sadly, many of us have experienced exactly that. The betrayal of trust, opening your heart to someone, sharing your most vulnerable side, only for it to be used against you.
Mind you, this doesn’t only happen in romantic relationships. I’m almost certain you’ve seen this happen in friendships too, where manipulation was part of the daily dynamic.
So, what do we do?
We armour up.
We love with caution.
We keep our stories folded tight and only half-share the truth, the good-looking version.
But then what are we doing, really? Are we really loving, or are we negotiating?
This is wrooooooooong.
Let me remind you of something: love has always involved risk. You don’t get real closeness without handing over the sword, and the people worth loving are the ones who choose to set that sword down.
Why Trust Is Not Just About Faithfulness
Trust in love is often misunderstood. We reduce it to not cheating, simply put. Not lying. Not hiding messages. But there’s a deeper kind of trust that goes beyond this behaviour.
It’s the trust that says:
“I can fall apart in front of you, and you won’t use it against me.”
“I can tell you the truth about my past, and you won’t punish me for it.”
“I can cry, admit fault, be a mess, and you won’t use this moment to win.”
This kind of trust is rare. And, most importantly, it’s hard to build. It takes effort, from both people.
But when it’s there, when that kind of trust is present, then… love becomes a sanctuary.
As I said in the previous newsletter, a love worth living.
Love Without Control
There’s something extremely dangerous that happens in romantic relationships. It’s this phenomenon we might call the romanticisation of needing someone.
Careful now.
One of the worst declarations of love is when someone tells you they need you. When you hear the other person say “I need you”, run. Get out immediately.
Let me tell you one thing:
I don’t want someone to need me. I want someone who chooses me. Who can live without me, but doesn’t want to.
There’s a big difference. Beware.
To confuse love with dependency is to poison the very thing you’re trying to protect. Because once need enters the picture, power becomes distorted.
The person you love starts becoming the person who controls how safe or whole you feel, and the line between love and manipulation gets very blurry.
Healthy love is never about control. It’s about presence, about choosing, every day, not to turn your knowledge of someone into a tool for leverage.
What It Looks Like in Real Life
So, what does this kind of love actually look like? Here are a few examples so you can see exactly what I mean. You might even recognise yourself in some of these situations. Let’s see:
- It looks like not bringing up their deepest insecurity in an argument.
- It looks like noticing their tenderness, and honouring it instead of testing it.
- It looks like letting someone walk away to take a breath, even when your ego wants to win the moment.
- It looks like holding space for their story, even when it’s messy or hard to hear.
- It looks like choosing to protect them, even when you’re hurt.
This doesn’t mean becoming passive or self-sacrificing. Let’s not go to extremes, discern. It means realising that the power love gives you is not a weapon, it’s a responsibility.
Responsibility… oooooh, the magic word. The one concept that, once understood and integrated, will change your life forever.
The Kind of Love Worth Having
Maybe this is what makes love so rare, and so necessary.
It’s not, never, about the high. It’s not, never, about being adored or seen as special.
It’s about this quiet, consistent restraint. This decision, over and over again, to do no harm. To love someone not just in their best, but in their most unguarded.
Listen to this.
Psychoanalyst Gabriel Rolón said it brilliantly in an interview I watched recently, where he spoke about love. Pay attention. He said:
“Treat me with love, even when you feel like killing me.”
That’s the thing. The most important couples advice you’ll ever hear. Remember: Love is never about dazzling you, it’s when the other person refuses to turn your openness into a weapon.
For your partner, whether you have one or not, keep this in mind:
“Treat me with more love in the moments when I’m at my most vulnerable,” and “Even if you’re burning with rage during an argument, never use my deepest wounds against me.”
Healthy love listens and understands, it doesn’t humiliate or manipulate.
Here’s the interview, where Gabriel Rolón speaks about this exact topic, love and vulnerability. Every minute is worth its weight in gold (turn on the subtitles so you can follow along).
Love,
Noemi
P.S. Go to minute 32:05, That’s where this psychoanalyst defines what real love is, and trust me, it’s not what most people are out here calling “love”.
