Sometimes love leaves for a while. Your heart breaks into small pieces of glass and you feel that pain…or at least I did, when it left me, he left me.

He said, “I want someone simpler.”

He didn’t say that.

But, I know he meant it.

I’m complicated, intense, scary even if you don’t know me. But he did know me, which makes it hurt even more than it did originally. His heart was completely open and he reached inside mine and pulled out my insides. He wanted to be with me, warm, and comfortable. We were together. As one, because that’s what love is, right? Togetherness.

Until…

it falls apart without telling you.

Unless…

it is conditional and not unconditional.

I love you if you ____.

I’ll do anything for you if you ____.

It doesn’t need to be that way. Just because I can’t control my brain, doesn’t mean I’m crazy. It means that my thoughts work differently and if you could just try to understand me a little better, maybe you wouldn’t leave. But it’s too late. You did leave. He did leave.

But…then, one day he came back. We sat down on the couch, in that office. We talked. He talked, I talked. Love was still there even though I believed it left. He wanted to work it out. Even though he once said I was crazy, he finally admitted that it was wrong. He was sorry. He wanted to understand, finally, he said “I can’t turn my brain off. You should know what that’s like.” And I did. He finally got it. He was able to see me, and I saw him.

It wasn’t perfect, but the love was still there.

I know that love could fall apart again. I’m ready to sew it back up where the holes are. That’s what you do.

When you love someone and they’re worth it. That is what YOU do.

Relationships are hard when you have mental health issues. But you can work on them with your partner in couples counseling. BetterHelp talks about the benefits of going to couples counseling and how it can bring people closer together. There are also some great resources out there, including books like The Five Love Languages, which tells us how partners communicate with each other and Attached, which talks about healthy dynamics in romantic relationships.