Love Them Because They Are Worth Loving
Why Building Love Primarily on How Someone Makes You Feel Can Be Dangerous
By John S. Collier, MSW, LCSW-S
There is a phrase we hear often when people talk about falling in love:
“I love the way you make me feel.”
It sounds beautiful.
And there is nothing wrong with feeling good around the person you love. We should hope our relationships bring happiness, comfort, affection, peace, laughter, attraction, safety, and belonging.
But there is a danger hidden inside those words when they become the reason we love someone.
Because feelings change.
People change.
Life changes.
And if I love you primarily because of what loving you does for me, what happens when you can no longer make me feel that way?
Maybe real love has to begin somewhere deeper.
Maybe I should not love you simply because you make me feel loved.
Maybe I should love you because you are worth loving.
Because you deserve to be loved.
And because, when the feelings rise and fall as feelings inevitably do, I still choose to love you.
“Love that depends entirely upon a feeling is in danger whenever the feeling changes.”
Feelings Are Powerful, but They Are Not Permanent
Our feelings are real, but they are also remarkably fluid.
A single conversation can change our mood. Stress can change it. Exhaustion can change it. Grief can change it. Financial pressure, parenting problems, illness, work, disappointment, aging, anxiety, and depression can all influence what we feel.
Romantic love itself has biological and psychological components. Research discussed by the American Psychological Association describes how early romantic love engages reward and motivational systems within the brain. That helps explain something many of us already know from experience.
Falling in love can feel incredible.
But a lifelong relationship cannot depend upon continually recreating the emotional intensity of falling in love.
Psychologist Robert Sternberg’s well-known triangular theory describes love through three components: intimacy, passion, and decision/commitment. Notice that last word:
Commitment.
There is emotion in love.
There is attraction in love.
There is intimacy in love.
But there is also decision.
That distinction matters.
The Problem With “I Love How You Make Me Feel”
There is a subtle difference between saying:
“I love you, and being loved by you makes me happy.”
and saying:
“I love you because you make me happy.”
Those statements may sound almost identical, but they can represent very different foundations.
In the first, happiness is a fruit of the relationship.
In the second, happiness can become a condition of the relationship.
If your primary value to me is your ability to make me feel good about myself, secure, wanted, important, admired, attractive, understood, or happy, I may gradually stop seeing you and begin seeing what you provide for me.
Without realizing it, love can become transactional:
You give me this feeling, and in return, I give you my love.
That is a dangerous bargain because neither person can maintain it forever.
No Person Can Carry the Responsibility for Your Happiness
There will be seasons when the person you love simply does not have much left to give.
They may be grieving.
They may become sick.
They may lose a parent.
They may struggle emotionally.
They may have problems at work.
They may become overwhelmed by raising children.
They may become frightened, tired, discouraged, irritable, or quiet.
They may need you far more than they are capable of giving to you.
And there is an important question hidden inside those difficult seasons:
Can I continue loving you when you are temporarily unable to make me feel the way you once did?
That may be one of the tests separating love as an emotion from love as a commitment.
If my love depends on what you supply emotionally, then your difficult season becomes my relationship crisis.
Instead of asking,
“What does the person I love need from me?”
I begin asking,
“Why aren’t you making me happy anymore?”
Those are completely different questions.
When Love Becomes About Me
There is a paradox here.
We can become very focused on another person while actually being preoccupied with ourselves.
I need your attention.
I need your reassurance.
I need you to respond a certain way.
I need you to make me feel important.
I need you to make me feel secure.
I need you to demonstrate that you love me.
There is nothing wrong with having relational needs. Healthy relationships require reciprocity, communication, respect, affection, trust, and appropriate boundaries.
The danger comes when another human being becomes responsible for constantly regulating our sense of worth.
At that point, we may not be asking:
“Who are you?”
We may really be asking:
“Who am I when I am reflected in your eyes?”
And those questions are worlds apart.
Love the Person, Not Just the Experience of the Person
There is something I think we should ask ourselves occasionally:
If this person stopped making me feel extraordinary, would I still believe they were extraordinary?
That question can be uncomfortable.
But it gets to the heart of mature love.
The person you love is more than an experience you are having.
They are a whole human being.
They have hopes you did not create.
Fears you did not cause.
Dreams that existed before you.
Wounds you may never completely understand.
Weaknesses.
Strengths.
Insecurities.
Failures.
Convictions.
Responsibilities.
And a life that possesses value apart from what it contributes to yours.
Research on motivations for romantic relationships also suggests that people enter relationships for different reasons, including love and care, family and children, status and resources, and other motivations. Those motivations are associated with people’s broader values and the qualities they seek in partners. So it is worth examining not simply whom we love, but why we love them.
“You Make Me Happy” Is a Gift, Not a Job Description
I hope the person you love makes you happy.
But happiness should be received as a gift rather than imposed as a job description.
Think about the difference.
Gift:
“Your presence brings happiness into my life, and I am grateful for it.”
Demand:
“Your responsibility is to keep me happy, and something is wrong with you whenever you don’t.”
The first produces gratitude.
The second can produce resentment.
The person you love should not have to wake every morning wondering whether they are successfully maintaining your emotional state.
That burden eventually becomes exhausting.
Feelings Are Weather. Commitment Is the House.
Feelings remind me of weather.
Some mornings are warm and clear.
Some evenings bring storms.
Occasionally the wind howls against the windows.
Sometimes rain seems to last for days.
But we don’t tear down the house every time the weather changes.
We build something capable of standing through changing weather.
Relationships need that kind of architecture.
Attraction may help bring two people together.
Emotion may deepen their connection.
Shared experiences may strengthen their bond.
But eventually love has to become something capable of surviving a rainy season.
Feelings are weather. Commitment is the house we build so love has somewhere to live when the storm comes.
Love Is Not Blind
Choosing love does not mean tolerating cruelty, abuse, manipulation, chronic betrayal, coercion, or dangerous behavior.
Commitment should never be used as justification for remaining unsafe.
Healthy love includes boundaries.
Healthy love can say no.
Healthy love can confront harmful behavior.
Healthy love can require change.
And sometimes loving someone does not mean continuing a particular relationship.
The idea that love involves choice should never become an excuse for mistreatment.
Choosing love means recognizing another person’s humanity and worth. It does not require abandoning your own.
There Will Be Days When Love Feels Different
Long relationships inevitably have ordinary days.
Nobody writes songs about Tuesday evening when both people are exhausted, the kitchen needs cleaning, someone forgot to pay a bill, and neither person has much interesting to say.
But those moments matter.
Because much of love is lived there.
Not on anniversaries.
Not during vacations.
Not inside perfect photographs.
But in kitchens.
Hospital rooms.
Cars.
Waiting rooms.
Grocery stores.
School parking lots.
Funerals.
Bad mornings.
Long nights.
And thousands of completely ordinary Tuesdays.
The intensity of emotion may change over time. Sternberg’s framework is useful precisely because love is not reduced to passion alone. Intimacy and commitment are distinct parts of the larger relationship. Sometimes love feels like fireworks.
Sometimes love feels like sitting beside someone who has nothing left to say and quietly letting them know:
You don’t have to entertain me.
You don’t have to impress me.
You don’t have to make me feel anything right now.
I’m still here.
The Question Changes
Immature love often asks:
“What am I getting from you?”
Mature love increasingly learns to ask:
“What can I give to this relationship without losing myself in the process?”
That doesn’t mean becoming a martyr.
It means learning reciprocity rather than keeping score.
There will be times when I carry more.
There will be times when you carry more.
And perhaps there will be moments when neither of us feels particularly strong, so we simply carry what we can together.
Love Is Also a Choice
This may be one of the least romantic sounding things we can say about love, yet I believe it is one of the most beautiful:
Sometimes love is a decision.
Sternberg’s theory explicitly incorporates decision and commitment as part of love. That does not make love cold.
It makes love dependable.
“I choose you” may ultimately mean more than “I feel something for you.”
Because feelings happen to us.
Choices require something from us.
There are mornings when you wake up feeling deeply connected to the person beside you.
There may be other mornings when frustration or hurt is sitting between you.
The question then becomes:
What will I do with the love I promised when love doesn’t feel effortless?
Love Someone Because They Are Worth Loving
Perhaps we need to change some of our language.
Instead of:
“I love you because you make me feel special.”
Try:
“I love you, and I am grateful that you make me feel special.”
Instead of:
“I love you because you make me happy.”
Try:
“I love you, and sharing my life with you brings me happiness.”
Instead of:
“I love you because of what you do for me.”
Try:
“I love who you are, not merely what you provide for me.”
Then perhaps arrive at something even deeper:
“I love you because I have come to know you. I see something worthy in you. I respect the human being you are. And I choose to participate in loving you.”
That kind of love has roots.
Love Them When They Cannot Perform for You
One day the person you love may not look the way they once did.
Neither will you.
Their body may change.
Their health may change.
Their career may change.
Their confidence may disappear for a while.
Perhaps their laughter will become harder to find.
Perhaps life will humble them.
And you might be given the extraordinary responsibility of loving someone during a season when they do not even feel very lovable themselves.
That is when love may become less glamorous but more meaningful.
Because then you are no longer saying:
“I love what I experience when I am with you.”
You are saying:
“I love you.”
Period.
And Let Them Love You the Same Way
There is another side to this.
You deserve a love that does not require you to perform happiness for someone else.
You should be able to have a bad day.
To grieve.
To struggle.
To get something wrong.
To need reassurance.
To grow.
To age.
To change.
To become tired.
To occasionally have very little to give.
Healthy relationships still require responsibility, repair, communication, and mutual effort. Love is not permission to stop caring for the relationship.
But you should not have to constantly prove your value by producing a particular emotional experience for somebody else.
You are not an emotional vending machine.
Neither is the person you love.
Conclusion: I Choose to Love You
Maybe love begins with a feeling.
A glance.
A conversation.
A smile.
Something inexplicable that draws two lives toward one another.
There is nothing wrong with that.
But if love becomes mature, eventually it must become more than what I feel when you walk into the room.
Because feelings rise.
Feelings fall.
Bodies change.
Circumstances change.
People disappoint each other.
Life interrupts our plans.
Storms arrive.
And eventually every relationship encounters a moment when feelings alone are not enough.
That is when love gets the opportunity to become something deeper.
I don’t want to love you merely because you make me feel important.
I want to recognize that you are important.
I don’t want to love you only because you make me feel worthy.
I want to remember that you have worth of your own.
I don’t want my love to disappear simply because life becomes difficult and the emotional reward feels smaller for a season.
I want to love you because I have looked carefully at the human being standing before me and decided:
You are worth loving.
You deserve love.
And today, I choose to love you.
Tomorrow, I want to make that choice again.
And the next day, again.
Perhaps that is one of the quiet secrets of lasting love.
It isn’t one enormous choice made at an altar, on an anniversary, or during some perfect moment.
It is thousands of ordinary choices.
I see you.
I value you.
I respect you.
I will not make you responsible for every emotion inside me.
And even when love feels different than it did yesterday, I will remember why I chose to love you in the first place.
The deepest love may not be, “I love you because of how you make me feel.” It may be, “I know who you are, I believe you are worth loving, and I choose to love you.”
About the Author
John S. Collier, MSW, LCSW-S is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker Supervisor and the Executive Director of Southeast Kentucky Behavioral Health, LLC. His career in social work and behavioral health has given him the opportunity to work with individuals and families facing trauma, mental health challenges, relationship difficulties, major life transitions, and the everyday struggles that shape human growth.
John writes The Mind’s Trestle Board as a place to explore the intersection of mental health, relationships, personal responsibility, faith, morality, fatherhood, emotional development, and the lifelong work of becoming a better human being.
His writing is grounded in the belief that growth does not require perfection. It requires honesty, humility, reflection, responsibility, and a willingness to keep working on ourselves. Through both his professional experience and personal reflections, he encourages readers to look beneath their immediate emotions and consider the values, choices, commitments, and relationships upon which a meaningful life is built.
