Love should never demand that you change in order to be worthy of it.

02-06-2026

©2026 BTMT-TJ

I once believed that love should arrive without requirements. That it should be unconditional in the purest sense, asking nothing of us and leaving us exactly as we are. To be loved, in that view, meant being accepted fully and immediately, without edits or adjustments, without having to become anything other than who we already were.

That belief is not wrong. Love should never demand that you change in order to be worthy of it. It should not become transactional or conditional, keeping score of effort or sacrifice. Love should welcome you in all of your states, in your confidence and in your doubt, in your tenderness and in your shame.

Still, there is another truth that took me much longer to understand. Love, when it is allowed to deepen, has a way of inviting change.

Not the kind of change that erases you or reshapes you into something unrecognizable. Rather, the kind that asks you to stay present with yourself instead of turning away. Love may ask you to feel what you have learned to avoid. It may want to see the parts of you that have lived in the dark for a long time. It may ask you to trust again, even while knowing that trust always carries the risk of being hurt.

We are often taught to expect love to arrive complete and effortless, as though it should bloom fully formed and remain untouched by time or struggle. What we hear less often is that love grows, and growth rarely leaves us unchanged. When love matures, it asks something quiet yet demanding of us. It asks whether we are willing to grow alongside it.

I used to think love was the answer to everything. Now I see it more as an invitation, even a challenge. Love asks difficult questions without raising its voice. Can you remain present when it would be easier to disappear? Can you speak honestly when silence once protected you? Can you allow yourself to be influenced, shaped, and expanded by connection?

True love does not force transformation. It does not break you down or insist that you become someone else. Still, it creates a space where staying exactly the same begins to feel uncomfortable. Not because you are lacking, but because there is more available to you. More depth. More awareness. More capacity to give and receive.

Love does not require you to abandon who you are. It does, however, leave its mark. It changes how you listen. It changes how you speak. It changes how you stay when things become difficult. These shifts do not erase you. They refine you.

Perhaps this is what it truly means to be loved. Not to be preserved in stillness, frozen in a single version of yourself, but to be met so fully and honestly that change becomes possible. To be changed without being lost.