Control isn’t love

Control Isn’t Love

I have a confession to make, something get off of My chest .There was a time when I thought if I just tried harder…

If I made one more phone call…

Scheduled one more appointment…

Found one more therapist…

Read one more book…

Said the right thing…

Stayed a little longer…

Maybe things would turn out differently.

I don’t think I was trying to control people.

I was trying to protect the people I loved.

There’s a difference.

When someone you love is suffering, control starts to feel like responsibility.

You organize. You research. You manage.

You anticipate. You become the coordinator of everyone else’s life while quietly disappearing from your own.

All the while somewhere inside, your nervous system begins believing a dangerous equation:

More control = More safety.

It makes sense. Until life hands you something you cannot control.

For Gill and me, that was Aidan.

We loved him. We showed up.

We drove him to appointments. Sat in emergency rooms.

Navigated addiction. Navigated treatment. Held hope. Lost hope.

Found it again.

We weren’t trained. We weren’t equipped.

We were functioning well beyond our emotional capacity while trying to keep our own lives from collapsing.

Looking back, I can see something I couldn’t see then. We weren’t failing.

We had simply reached the limits of what two human beings could carry.

That realization hurts. Because if control isn’t what keeps the people we love safe…

Then what is? The answer isn’t satisfying.

Sometimes… Nothing.

Sometimes love doesn’t prevent tragedy.

Sometimes it simply refuses to abandon someone while they’re living through it.

That has changed how I think about love.

Love isn’t control. Love is presence.

Control wants certainty. Presence offers companionship.

Control says, “I have to fix this.”

Presence says, “You don’t have to face this alone.”

Those are very different things.

Ironically, the more I’ve tried to control life, the more frightened I’ve become.

The more I’ve practiced presence…

The more alive I’ve become.

I’m still learning this. I still catch myself trying to manage outcomes that don’t belong to me. I still want the people I love to be okay. I probably always will.

But I’m slowly discovering something grief has been trying to teach me.

I can control my presence. I cannot control another person’s path.

And maybe that’s enough.

Maybe love was never asking me to carry the impossible. Maybe it was only asking me… To stay.

—

Phoenix Field

Heal what we love. Lift what we touch.