Talk is cheap, especially when it comes to love. It’s easy to say those three little words, but they mean nothing if there are no actions there to back them up. If you really love me, here’s how you show it:
- Be there when I need you. Loving someone isn’t just about being there through the good times. It’s also about sticking around when things get hard. If you love me, you’ll make sure I know I can always lean on you for support and I never feel alone.
- Make our relationship a priority. Love isn’t enough to keep a relationship going strong forever. If you want a healthy relationship, you have to be willing to compromise sometimes and put serious effort into communicating. It’s easy to get lazy and start taking a relationship for granted, but if you really love me, you’ll make us a priority.
- Be supportive of my dreams. Loving someone means you want them to be happy no matter what. Anyone who holds me back from my dreams because they somehow aren’t convenient for them is not someone I want in my life. Real love can make it through anything, but only if both people genuinely want to put in the work to make that happen.
- Get to know my family and friends. If you have no interest in spending time with the other people in my life that are important to me, then you must not care about me very much. I want all the people I love to get along and be comfortable with each other, so if you love me, you’ll at least make an effort to have a relationship with my friends and family.
- Be interested in my opinion. Loving me means being interested in my point of view and what I have to say. You don’t necessarily have to agree what everything I believe, but you do need to respect that I have my own opinions and I always will. If you actually trust my opinion enough to follow my advice once in awhile, that’s even better.
- Listen. Not only is it nice to know you’re actually, truly listening to me when I vent about work and the argument I had with my mom, but it’s even better when you know that sometimes I don’t need you to fix anything. It’s always a nice surprise when you bring up something I mentioned days ago because then I know you really were paying attention and not just zoning out while I rambled on.
- Be reliable. No one likes a flake. If you care about me, you’ll do your very best to keep your promises, follow through and show up. There are always times where circumstances get in the way, but I’ll be a lot more understanding about those times if, in general, you’re there when you say you’re going to be.
- Always be honest with me. Lies always have a way of coming out eventually anyway, and they end up hurting a lot more than if you’d just told the truth in the first place. Love means doing everything you can to avoid hurting someone and always respecting them enough to tell them the truth, no matter what it is.
- Accept me for who I am. I’ll be the first person to admit that I’m not perfect, and if you really know me, you know all about my flaws. If you can’t love my flaws and little quirks, then you don’t really love me at all because those things are a big part of who I am.