February often brings love into focus, with heart-shaped reminders, Valentine’s messages, and the cultural emphasis on romance. Yet love is rarely simple. It can feel exhilarating, grounding, confusing, and sometimes even painful. One essential truth is that love and choice are not the same, and understanding this distinction can bring clarity, healing, and deeper connection.
Love is instinctive and often impossible to explain. It’s the rush in your chest when you hear someone’s voice, the warmth that spreads when their name lights up on your phone, the magnetic pull toward someone that feels undeniable. Love happens without permission; it simply exists. Choice, by contrast, is deliberate and considered. It is shaped by timing, personal goals, responsibilities, fears, circumstances, and vision for the future. Choice asks, “Can I sustain this connection? Is this relationship possible and healthy?” This is why someone can love you deeply and still step away. Not because their feelings weren’t real, but because other factors outweighed them: distance, timing, personal priorities, or emotional readiness. Love says, “I want you.” Choice asks, “Can I keep you?”
Understanding this difference can be freeing. When someone steps away, it is not a reflection of your worth. Awareness of this allows you to release the compulsion to replay every detail, to question yourself, or to take responsibility for another person’s choices. Instead, it invites you to focus on your own healing, your growth, and the conscious choice to care for yourself. Until someone who both loves and chooses you enters your life, the most important choice is your own: choosing yourself.
Even those in loving relationships can benefit from reflecting on love versus choice. Love brings connection, joy, and intimacy, but choice sustains relationships over time. Healthy couples actively choose each other every day, especially when life becomes busy or complicated. Acts of care, attentive listening, and open communication reinforce choice, while celebrating conscious effort strengthens the bond. Emotional closeness is vital, but alignment in values, intentions, and life goals ensures love endures. Love is the spark; choice is the bridge. Together, they create a foundation for lasting, resilient relationships.
This Valentine’s month, it is also important to remember that the first love you need to nurture is the one you give yourself. Self-compassion allows you to recognise your worth independently of external validation, set boundaries that protect your heart, and remain open to authentic connection. Approaching relationships — past, present, or future — from a grounded, self-respecting place ensures that when someone who both loves and chooses you arrives, you will recognise it clearly. Until then, choosing yourself is the most powerful act of love.
If you would like support navigating relationships, understanding patterns of love and choice, or cultivating self-compassion, I work with clients in therapy to explore these dynamics safely and compassionately. Together, we can help you strengthen your emotional wellbeing, clarify your values, and build the tools to experience relationships that are truly aligned with who you are.
With love and renewal,
Laura
