When you love someone, you don’t ruin your apologies with excuses. You don’t blame your ex for screwing you up. Or your father. Or your mother. You don’t turn the situation around in order to blame your person either. You don’t claim you lied to protect their feelings because you knew they couldn’t handle the truth. You don’t claim you cheated because they have been working late, because they have been acting distant, because they haven’t been intimate in weeks.

When you love someone, you own your shit. You take responsibility for your actions. You don’t even try to wiggle out of the dog house because you understand your choices have consequences.

When you love someone, you are disappointed in yourself every time you cause your person pain. You care about their happiness as much as you care about your own, so you are devastated about hurting them. You want to make it up to them. You want to wipe the tears away and see them smile again. You want to set things right.

When you love someone, you take action. You make a conscious effort to change your behavior. You promise to work on yourself — and you keep that promise. You follow through because you believe your person only deserves the best.

When you love someone, you consider their happiness a priority. You put effort into making them feel loved, appreciated, and comfortable. You don’t try to get away with dishing out the minimum amount of effort. You don’t try to exploit them, manipulate them, take advantage of them.

When you love someone, you don’t make the same mistakes over and over again. You don’t see how many times you can screw up and get away with it. You don’t take advantage of their forgiveness. You don’t test how many second chances they are willing to give because you cannot imagine them leaving you.

Even if they haven’t called you out on your unacceptable behavior, even if they haven’t cursed you out or threatened to leave you or cried directly in front of you, that doesn’t mean what you are doing is right. It doesn’t mean you can continue treating them poorly. You should not treat your person well to stop them from complaining, to convince them to stick around. You should treat them well because you want to treat them well, you want them to be happy.

When you love someone, he last thing you want is to see them suffer — especially when you are the reason for their suffering. Hurting them hurts yourself. It makes you feel like a failure as a forever person. It makes you feel like you don’t deserve their love. And if you keep making the same mistakes, you don’t deserve their love. You don’t deserve another day alongside them.

When you love someone, you try to become the best possible version of yourself. You try to treat your person as well as they have always treated you. You try to give them everything they deserve — and more.