Part of the process of falling in love, one person makes an agreement with their object of affection, pledging their undying loyalty and love.

One agrees to shelter the other from the storms of life.  They will prove their love by fighting the others battles, standing up to the monsters and vowing to never leave their side.  Loyalty becomes an extreme sport.

You’ve heard their history, their stories, the failed relationships in the past and you know without a doubt that you can be the one person they can count on.  You will be the one to fix them.

In that very moment, the ones who are willing to seal the deal, in blood if necessary, in order to prove themselves, do so without one word spoken.

This is an agreement made without specific words from the other person involved.  The agreement is made through body language, hopes and dreams, whispers of love in the heat of passion.

Sadly, neither party realizes this at the time, they do not realize that in reality, they are crippling the other person.  Cutting them off at the knees, not allowing them to fully realize their own human experience.

I suspect we are not meant to be aware of such things, why else do we experience the release of heavy chemicals from our very own bodies during the early stages of love.

You do not realize, until years later there actually were red flags but something in your brain pushed them to the side.  They were there, they are always there.  They are best viewed using your hindsight lenses.

We seek to protect our beloved, believing it to be the honorable thing to do, in order to prove ourselves to them.  In order to prove just how much we love the other person.

Until one day you are sitting in a comfortable chair telling someone the full story, not understanding how it came to this.  Realizing that you can no longer carry their burdens, and it was never your job to begin with.

The love you used to cloak your intended with was merely a reflection of your very own lack of needs.  You realize that those brave promises you made for the one you loved, were in reality the proclamations your heart longed for.  You, were the one that needed saving.

We project all of this onto our partners, our husbands, and our wives.  We act out the very role we wish someone would provide for us.  We love them in the manner in which we want to be loved.

And, they do the same.