“Will this work?” she asked.

And I stared at her blankly, wondering “really, how will it?”

Relationships do need give and take, but all I was seeing was a giver and a taker and it wasn’t vice versa. I wasn’t seeing effort being reciprocated at all. So no, I wasn’t sure how it would work. In fact, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t.

Then she said, “What if I give it more time?”

And I remember thinking, umm, what exactly will poor time do? A human being changes when they want to, and the one on the other side clearly didn’t want to, and then I went on to have a similar conversation with someone else, and then another. Different people, same question: does this relationship have potential? And it goes on and on.

Most of us do have a checklist when we set out to look for a partner—looks, height, build, finances, initial chemistry, attraction, and usually, we think that’s enough to create a relationship with someone. But it’s only with time that a relationship truly reveals itself.

When that checklist settles down, the other gaps start showing up. Other criteria, the ones that should have been considered from the beginning (and continuously) finally come into focus. And that’s when people are left wondering: Is this good for me or not? Will this work or will it not? What most of us were never taught is how to look beyond the surface, to look underneath the checklist.

Who is this person really? Who are they when the chips are down? When stress takes over? When conflict arises? When ideas don’t match and values clash? Who are they at their worst—still someone you can be with, or someone who brings out the worst in you?

“You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.” ~ Jodi Picoult

How do they show up in day-to-day conversations, when life has to be navigated together? Do they have the mental and emotional capacity to hold you? To consider you? To make room for you? Or do they simply expect you to adjust? Are they comfortable giving love, attention, gratitude, and appreciation, or only receiving it?

Are they willing to co-create a relationship or do they outsource all emotional labour to you?

Because this is where relationships are actually built or broken.

We talk a lot about love, compromise, patience, and “making things work.”

And while all of that matters, there are certain behaviours that no amount of love, empathy, or effort can compensate for.

Some patterns don’t need more understanding. They need distance.

So if you’re constantly confused, shrinking, explaining yourself, or questioning your worth, read this slowly.

Never be with someone who:

1. Never apologises: Not because they never make mistakes, but because their ego won’t allow accountability. Someone who can’t say “I was wrong” will slowly make you carry the weight of every conflict, every rupture, every repair alone.

2. Doesn’t listen, only reacts: They hear to respond, argue, correct, or defend, not to understand. Over time, you stop sharing, not because you don’t care but because it feels pointless.

3. Makes you the problem every time: Every concern is flipped back onto you. You leave conversations feeling guilty, confused, or dramatic for simply having needs.

4. Plays the victim instead of taking responsibility: Pain becomes a shield to avoid reflection. Accountability feels like an attack. Growth feels threatening.

5. Refuses to grow: They see feedback as criticism and introspection as unnecessary. Relationships require evolution, and stagnation slowly suffocates intimacy.

6. Needs to win every argument: Being “right” matters more than being connected. Power replaces partnership, and love becomes a battleground.

7. Is inconsistent with words and actions: They promise change, care, and effort, but behaviour tells a different story, and this inconsistency keeps you anxious, hoping, waiting.

8. Makes you doubt your reality: You start questioning your emotions, thoughts, and memory. Over time, you lose trust in yourself, which is far more damaging than any argument.

9. Avoids hard conversations in the name of peace: Silence, withdrawal, or shutdown isn’t peace. It’s emotional abandonment disguised as calm.

10. Expects emotional labour without offering it back: You explain, empathise, adjust, hold space, while they remain unavailable, dismissive, or detached.

Being with someone like this doesn’t just hurt. It changes you. You start shrinking, over-explaining, trying harder for less, and slowly, without realising it, you disconnect from yourself.

And this is where something deeply important needs to be said—you do not have to endure pain to be loved or chosen. But many of us believe we do.

For so many of us, this belief is not conscious; it’s learned, a survival strategy. We grew up in environments where love had to be earned. Where approval came after adjustment. Where being easy, agreeable, high-performing, or invisible kept us safe.

So we learned that love comes with pain and that being chosen requires endurance. That if it hurts, it must mean it matters, and because of this belief, we normalise things that should never have been normal in the first place—emotional neglect, inconsistency, disrespect, loneliness within relationships.

We confuse being chosen with being loved. But there is a difference. Being chosen often feeds the wound: Am I enough now? Did I finally make it?

Being loved fully does not require you to suffer, shrink, or prove. The right kind of love does not ask you to bleed quietly. It does not reward endurance; it does not test your capacity to tolerate pain.

For a relationship to be healthy, we have to drop the desperate need to be chosen because that need often comes from old wounds, not present truth, and eventually, who you choose is never just about them. It comes down to you—your relationship with yourself. How you show up for yourself, what you normalise, what you tolerate, what you keep choosing and why, because the standards you hold for others are deeply tied to the standards you hold for yourself.

Love should not feel like constant self-betrayal and erasure, and you don’t need to stay where your needs are repeatedly dismissed just to prove you’re patient, loyal, or understanding.

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do isn’t fixing the relationship.

It’s choosing not to stay in one that keeps breaking you.

It’s okay to walk away from something that doesn’t fulfill, grow, or empower you.

And that choice, as hard as it is, is where real self-respect begins.

~