I know how you’re feeling right now. You’re sitting alone, but you can recall how that tension surfaces when you’re in the same room. How things used to be one way. Heart eyes, soft kisses, and afternoons spent cuddled on the couch. And now it feels like you’re struggling just to stay afloat. You know you love him. You know that he honestly means the world to you, and so you’ve been fighting, you’ve been fighting so hard that it almost hurts. You’ve been attempting to keep yourself composed and together, hoping that if you can hold out long enough, you’ll get back to that lovely place again.

Yet, let me tell you, there is a right and wrong way to fight for what you love.

Indeed, when we love and care about something, it tends to ignite something in us. A desire to protect what you perceive as important to you. To not allow anything even to make an attempt at destroying it. We tend to set the things we love on pedestals because we view them as the best thing in our lives. So, when situations arise where love seems to be fading away or taking its toll, we immediately react and go into fight mode. Though sometimes, we tend just to start throwing punches with our eyes closed, not even taking a moment to ponder why things are the way they are. Is this relationship simply in a rough place, and deserves your energy and passion burning so fiercely inside of you? Or have you simply been so in love with him- or even just the idea of him- that you’ve been fighting despite that he doesn’t reciprocate your love?

There is a difference between fighting for someone who loves you and fighting for someone to love you.

The former part of that statement shows that love is present on both sides. It isn’t a simple, “Oh, I know he loves me” as the foundation you stand on, but his actions and words have backed this up time and time again (and not when it was only convenient for him). Two people can love each other, and yet sometimes life tends to take its toll. It can be stressful, outside forces can weigh heavy on our shoulders, and occasionally we let things slip to the backburner. On our worst nights, we may question if the relationship is even worth it.

This is when you fight for someone.

When everything around you seems to fall apart, but you refuse to let your love fall apart with it. It’s when you step up and love even harder. It’s when you say, “I know that sometimes this is hard, but you are worth every second of it.” It’s knowing that you both care for each other and make each other better just by being in each other’s lives, and so you refuse to let some setbacks tear you apart. There isn’t anything wrong with fighting for someone who loves you; honestly, you will probably have to do it at some point in the relationship.

Yet if the person on the other side of the table doesn’t see your value, if he treats you like you’re a mild inconvenience at best and absolutely disposable at worst, and you spend your days fighting so he sees your worth, then you need to stop fighting. Because the honest truth is that no amount of fighting for someone to see how wonderful you are will ever work.

You shouldn’t have to fight for someone to see this; they should recognize it when they look at you, or when they spend time getting to know your heart. They should see your kindness, humor, patience, and loyalty as something to cherish, not as something to look over in favor of everything else. You shouldn’t be expending all of your energy and fire in a desperate plea of, “Look, I am worth your love, I promise.” Fighting for someone to love you is not something you can claim as brave or noble because truthfully you know in your heart that trying to make someone see why they should love you is not the way this should be in the first place, and it’s ultimately a waste of your time.

Time that you could be dedicating to someone else, who does see your value and worth right off the bat.

It’s okay to want to fight for the things we love. Yet you have to stop blindly fighting for a relationship with someone who doesn’t honestly love you and call it courageous or dedicated. You have to recognize that something that is healthy and normal can just as easily be used in the wrong context, in the wrong situation, and can become dangerous or detrimental to you and your heart. It’s easy to wear rose-colored glasses and allow them to hide every single red flag that has been frantically waving at you- sometimes love can make us believe something is worth the fight, even when it’s isn’t.

So take a moment, breathe, and honestly reflect on this love you’ve held onto so tightly. Open your hands, take off the glasses, and allow yourself to see if you should keep fighting, or if you should walk away. Because you honestly deserve to use that bright, fiery, determined passion inside of you for something that reciprocates back to you, not just because it feels like the right thing to do.

You deserve to fight for a love that is reciprocated back to you.