When you love someone, you accept them exactly the way they are, flaws and all. You don’t complain about how the relationship would be perfect if they would tweak one or two things about themselves. You are happy with them the way they are right now. You would never ask them to change because you fell in love with an imperfect, messy, flawed person and it would be unfair to ask them to be anybody other than themselves.
When you love someone, you accept their little quirks. You accept their past. You accept their baggage.
That doesn’t mean you allow them to treat you like shit. That doesn’t mean you make excuses for their bad behavior. That doesn’t mean you remain quiet when they treat you poorly because you believe they have a good reason for doing so.
If they are treating you disrespectfully, if their behavior is unacceptable, then you need to leave. You need to stop trying to fix what is broken and do what is best for yourself by walking away.
However, if you are in a healthy relationship where you respect each other and remain faithful to each other, then the rules are different.
When you love someone, you are understanding when they snap at you for seemingly no reason or act suspicious of your behavior. You might not be happy with the way they treated you, but you see where they were coming from. You realize the situation looked different from their point of view.
When you love someone, you accept their apologies once they realize they have screwed up because you know they are not mad at you, they are mad about something that happened in their past that they haven’t completely gotten closure with yet.
When you love someone, you give them another shot as long as they promise to work on their behavior and take active steps toward getting better. You give them an opportunity to set things right instead of holding their mistake over their head forever.
When you love someone, you accept their flaws. You accept their baggage. You accept they are less than perfect.
You don’t fault them for having trust issues or abandonment issues. You don’t make them feel guilty about where they have come from or the lingering pain they are still trying to cope with. You support them. You encourage them. You stand by their side and help them in any way possible.
When you love someone, you never throw their flaws in their face. You never use their trauma as ammo against them when you get into an argument. You never make them feel worse about themselves than they already do.
When you love someone, you try your hardest to understand what they have been through. You invite them to open up. You listen to their stories. You hold them while they cry.
When you love someone, you work as a team. You try to figure out ways to help each other. You try your best to convince them history does not have to repeat itself because you are never going to hurt them the way they have been hurt before.
When you love someone, you do not need them to be perfect, because they are perfect for you.
By Holly Riordan for ThoughtCatalog