The Fear Behind the Love

132 days before I met my life partner—at the ripe age of 42—I had a visceral, out-of-body experience that cracked me open. I realized, with a clarity that bypassed thought and hit me straight in the body, that I didn’t love myself. And I had no idea why anyone else would either.

It didn’t come in therapy. It didn’t arrive through journaling. It happened in an intimate conversation with two close friends. They told me they loved me. And my response, without hesitation, was a genuine, dumbfounded: "Why?"

The moment I heard myself say it, I knew.

This wasn’t about searching for my future partner. This was about finding my way back to loving myself. 

Sometimes the problem isn’t that you’re not being loved. It’s that you don’t know how to receive it.

Not because you’re broken. But because no one ever taught you what it feels like to be safe inside love.

We talk a lot about the fear of losing love. But there’s another fear that’s rarely named: The fear of being loved.

Because being loved means being seen. Being seen means being known. And being known—deeply, vulnerably known—can feel terrifying when you’ve spent your life protecting the parts of you you thought were unlovable.

So instead of letting love in, you test it. You push it. You poke at it. Or you chase people who can’t really love you—because their distance feels safer than someone else’s devotion. At least these are all the things I did. 

And here's the twist: I believe we often end up with partners whose fear mirrors our own. You’re scared of being loved. They’re scared of doing the loving. In some ways, it becomes an unspoken agreement—not to step into the deepest vulnerability. And yet, I believe life is designed to do exactly that: to send us straight into the heart of what we’re afraid to feel.  

So you tiptoe around each other’s edges, never quite touching the center.

This isn’t a flaw. It’s a pattern. One that points to where the healing is ready to begin.

Because the love you long for isn’t a feeling. It’s a practice. And the fears you’re hiding from inside love? They’re not blocks. They’re invitations.

So the question isn’t: Why is love so hard? But rather What part of me still believes I don’t deserve to be loved this deeply and why?