The Quiet Work of Love

We’re not born knowing how to love. That’s the thought that hit me on the walk home from the gym, somewhere between a memory of old Tarzan stories and a quiet reckoning with how much I’ve had to unlearn.

Tarzan, raised by apes, didn’t know the way of men. He had to figure it out—awkwardly, painfully, through instinct and confusion. Honestly? Most of us enter relationships the same way.

We echo what we’ve seen.
We repeat what didn’t work, until we learn better.
We carry wounds we don’t even know we have—until someone touches them.

If we’re lucky, we meet someone who’s also doing the work. Someone willing to grow with us—not perfectly, but honestly.

That’s what this essay is about.
Not perfection. Not performance. Just the quiet, unglamorous work of learning how to love—and be loved—in real time.

I married young, believing love meant providing—stability, responsibility, showing up. And for years, I did just that. My wife mostly stayed home, raising our daughter. I focused on building a life, a career, a future.

But it wasn’t simple. There were health issues. Infertility. Complex family dynamics. Then my father was given two weeks to live. I didn’t move back home, but I drove 400-mile round trips— sometimes twice a week for over two years—to be with him. I literally drove myself into the ground.

When he died, I was devastated. One afternoon, not long after his funeral, I found myself standing in the kitchen, quietly banging my head against the wall. The physical pain dulled something deeper. It wasn’t rage—it was grief made unbearable. Something fractured in me that day.

And in us. A chance to grow together passed us by. My wife, through no fault of her own, didn’t have the tools to help me grieve—and I didn’t know how to ask. The space between us grew quiet. Then it grew wide.

I threw myself into work. When we were offered a move to the US within a year, I saw it as a clean slate.

There was no real support. My employer assumed that because we spoke the same language—sort of—we didn’t need help. Expats from elsewhere got assistance. We didn’t. And without a support system, everything fractured.

Looking back, I see how each well-intentioned decision added pressure to something already fragile. By the time we divorced, we were upholding the shape of a life that no longer held us. The form mattered more than the people inside it. When I told HR my wife and daughter had returned to the UK, their response was flat: "Yes, that happens a lot."

It was five years before I remarried. I thought we both wanted a partnership of equals, but I think that was an assumption on my part. She wanted me to lead—but I usually only found that out after she told me I’d failed. My worth was measured in output. There was no room to be human. And the truth is, neither of us had the tools to have those conversations.

What I came to realize was that she didn’t want a partner in the way I did. She wanted a platform—somewhere solid to return to between solo pursuits. I was trying to build a we, while she was still rooted in I. Not someone to build with, but someone to lean on when things got heavy.

It took years—and a lot of inner work—to unravel all of that. Years of writing and rewriting my way back to myself. I followed the thread through journals, poems, essays—letting the dark speak, then coaxing in the light. Piece by piece, I began to see how much of what I believed about love had never been mine to begin with. That love had to be earned through usefulness. That devotion had to be proven. That being needed was the same as being seen.

That writing led me somewhere deeper: to the ache of not being seen by my mother.

She baked the most amazing pies, and I would always ask to help. She’d say, “Another time”—but that time never came. It was my godmother first, then a cousin, who taught me how to find my way around a kitchen—letting me make a mess, letting me make mistakes, but most of all, helping me build memories. That early grief taught me how deeply we carry longing into adult love. That ache—the longing to be included, remembered—showed up again later in my relationships, only I didn’t see it at first. Small exclusions can echo louder than they should.

Slowly, I learned to be kind to my former self. To strip away the programming. To ask, with honesty: What do I want from love? What does real partnership feel like?

These days, I’m in a relationship unlike anything I’ve known. We met as we are—not as projects, but as people. I still provide. I still lead. That’s part of who I am. But now I’m also seen. Heard. Held. In ways I never knew I needed, and never quite believed I could have.

She’s my muse—not because she completes me, but because we give each other space to become more fully ourselves. We've created a safe space to air the feelings that might turn into resentment if left unspoken. They might sting at the time, but we’ve built the muscle memory to recognize how freeing that honesty is.

Being held, in practice, looks like this: space when I need it, presence when I don’t know how to ask. Listening that doesn’t rush to fix. Touch that soothes without words. Not grand gestures—just everyday grace.

Looking back, I see how deeply I’d absorbed the story that being a man meant being the provider. Not just financially, but emotionally. Logistically. Hold the plan. Carry the load. Make it all work. Then, maybe, you’re worthy of love.

But what happens when the market crashes? When your body breaks down? When life shifts beneath your feet?

If your worth is built on what you can hold, what’s left when you can’t?

We need more stories that live in the in-between. Where people are whole enough to stand alone—and wise enough to know they don’t have to. Where readiness isn’t about perfection, but presence. That’s the kind of love I’m learning to practice—not after becoming whole, but within the becoming itself.

These days, I don’t ask if someone’s ready.
I ask if they’re learning.

Learning to be present.
To be human.
To do the quiet work that makes love possible.

I ask if they’re willing.
Willing to look inward.
To take responsibility for their patterns, their wounds.
To be honest—not just about who they are, but who they’re becoming.
To grow together, side by side.

A while back, a friend was struggling with boundaries. I built a worksheet to help. My partner, a psychologist, reviewed it. Liked it. Suggested we both fill it out and compare notes.

We did. And that conversation changed everything.

We didn’t just list our boundaries—we shared the stories behind them. The old wounds. The shadows of past relationships. We weren’t just learning the what, we were learning the why.

No defensiveness. No judgment. Just space. Just presence. Just curiosity.

Real intimacy doesn’t come from perfection—but from the willingness to be seen. And meeting someone who chooses to stay.

So, are we ever really ready?

Maybe not in the way we’ve been taught.
Not perfectly built. Not fully healed. Not standing on a finished platform, waiting for someone to step in.

Maybe it’s less about having it all figured out—and more about how we show up in the becoming.

Some people build before they love. Others build within it.
There’s no one path.

What matters is bringing your full self to the table—not the polished version, but the honest one. The one still learning. Still softening. Still choosing to try. Still learning to be human.

Because in the end, partnership isn’t about proving your worth.
It’s about offering your truth.

And finding someone who says:
yes... here, too.