“The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.” – Rumi

I have personally felt as I grew through my 30s, 40s, and now moving to 50s, that our experiences, behaviours, and expectations of care change as we mature , sometimes we go through it quietly, and other times with intense emotional outbursts. Around this time, a lot of us either start the courageous, frequently messy process of self-discovery or unconsciously copy our parents’ model of how to show and receive love.
Love turns into a conditioned routine for certain people, characterised by unspoken expectations and well-known letdowns. The unspoken chorus is, “This is how I was raised, so this is how love must be shown.” Others start to wonder: Do I really need this? Is this my true identity?

By the time we reach our 30s, many of us carry deeply embedded love languages—ones we didn’t choose, but inherited. These languages are often shaped by what we saw growing up. A mother who never said “I love you” but served meals as an act of care. A father who rarely hugged but silently paid for everything. These become the scripts we rehearse in our adult relationships.

Some of us become replicas of our parents, feeling we must act and receive care in those exact ways—believing love must look like sacrifice, control, or silence. For others, those inherited patterns create conflict: I want to show affection, but I don’t know how. I want to receive tenderness, but it makes me uncomfortable.

When love becomes transactional or patterned, it often brings unconscious expectations. And expectations, when unmet, birth the quiet wound: “I am not enough.” I have felt this in smallest of conversation when I or my partner used to say this, it triggered more emotions in the other and landed in a unhealthy conversation.

As I have been a quiet rebellion and always choose the path of self-inquiry since adulthood. I have always been an individual who peels away the layers of learned love, generational beliefs, and cultural biases. With an ask:

• What does love mean to me?
• How do I want to feel cared for?
• Can I allow love without fearing its end?

In this journey, love shifts from being about possession to presence. From duty to connection.

When you understand yourself—your emotional language, your boundaries, your sensitivities—love stops being about performance. You begin to give love in ways that nourish others and you. You start to receive love not from expectation, but from awareness. And in this awareness, love is no longer filtered through fear or lack.

Even though we are frequently unaware of it, our internal monologue about love is rife with unconscious biases, particularly the idea that love must come from someone else in order for us to feel whole. That if there isn’t a specific tone, gesture, or ritual, love isn’t “real.” Relationship imbalances result from these biases. As one waits quietly to “feel” love, the other feels obligated to “prove” it. It turns into a not-enough dynamic: He doesn’t show me the kind of affection I require. No matter how much I try, she never sees. It wears people down, this emotional work. And hatred gradually replaces affection.
However, when we face these biases, we discover a profound reality: Love only needs to feel like presence; it doesn’t need to look like anything.

“Loving oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” – Oscar Wilde

Everyone around us always says “Let Go!” : But no one exactly tells what to let go!

People will always have opinions. Whether it’s about how we should behave in relationships, how we express care, or how we move on after heartbreak—someone will always have something to say.

But the beauty of mid-life is this: we finally realize that other people’s opinions do not have to become our truths. So to let it go, we need to :

1. Identify our basic beliefs: What is important to you in a romantic relationship? Turn off the outside noise.
2. Choose individuals who see you, not just how they portray you, and surround yourself with genuine connections.
3. Develop self-validation since unconditional love never requires anything else.
4. Remain in the moment: The majority of love-related worries stem from previous hurt or worry of the future.

“Be softer with you.
You are a breathing thing.
A memory to someone.
A home to a life.” – Nayyirah Waheed

As we mature, love becomes less about dramatic gestures and more about subtle presence. Less about proving and more about understanding. The more we understand ourselves, the more we show up in love from a place of wholeness.

And when we do, love is no longer something we get—it is something we are.