Why You Accept the Love You Think You Deserve
I chose the partner who loved me exactly as much as I believed I was worth—which is to say, conditionally, partially, with one foot always out the door. The man who offered unlimited devotion felt too generous for someone like me; surely he was confused about my value, temporarily blinded by infatuation that would fade when he discovered who I really was.
So I settled for love rationed according to my internal price tag, affection doled out in portions that matched my sense of deserving. When someone offered more than my self-worth could cash, I assumed there must be some mistake, some misunderstanding that would eventually correct itself.
We don’t accept the love we need—we accept the love that feels familiar, that confirms what we already believe about ourselves, that requires no adjustment to our internal narrative about our worthiness. Generous love feels foreign, suspicious, too good to be true for someone who has catalogued every reason they don’t deserve generosity.
The love we think we deserve is often the love that echoes the voices from our past: the parent who praised us conditionally, the early relationship that taught us affection was something to be earned, the experiences that convinced us love was a transaction where we had to prove our value repeatedly.
If you believe deep down that you’re too needy, you’ll choose partners who withhold affection. If you believe you’re too much, you’ll choose people who make you feel like less. If you believe you’re fundamentally flawed, you’ll be comfortable with love that treats you as a fixer-upper rather than a finished work of art.
The tragic irony is that the love we need—unconditional, patient, generous—is often available, but it bounces off the armor of unworthiness we’ve constructed. We’re so busy proving we don’t deserve good treatment that we miss opportunities to receive it.
Maybe learning to accept better love requires first learning to give it to ourselves—to become the generous lover of our own imperfect humanity, to treat ourselves with the kindness we’d offer a friend, to stop rationing our own affection according to performance metrics that no one else is even tracking.
Tonight I want to practice accepting love that exceeds my internal price tag, affection that doesn’t match my self-assessment, care that feels too generous for someone like me—because maybe someone like me is exactly the kind of person who deserves generous love.