He Lets Me Be a Whole Person

Dear Delyara, What I’m most grateful for is not that he loves me when I’m easy. It’s that he still loves me when I’m tired, complicated, quiet, not fully sure what I feel, or slower to return to myself than usual. There is such dignity in being loved without being edited first. I didn’t realize how much of my old relationships required performance until I stopped performing and someone stayed anyway. That has changed the way I understand intimacy.