Let me check in with you for a moment. Have you noticed that love does not excite you the way it used to? Not in a sad way. Just in a quieter, more cautious way.

There was a time when being chosen felt like enough. A text that came on time could lift your mood for hours. Consistency felt like commitment. Attention felt like affection. You did not ask many questions because you were just grateful someone stayed.

Then something shifted. Maybe it was after one relationship ended badly. Maybe it was after too many nights explaining yourself.
Maybe it was after realizing you were always adjusting, always understanding, always waiting.

Healing rarely announces itself. It just changes what you can tolerate. Take Amaka, for instance. Amaka used to love intense men. The kind that called ten times in one night, disappeared for two days, then came back with long apologies and even longer promises. She called it passion. She said boredom scared her. But one year of being alone, reading, praying quietly, and learning how to sit with herself changed something.

Now, when someone is inconsistent, her body reacts before her heart does. Not with excitement. With tiredness. And she wonders why dating feels harder now. It is not harder. It is clearer. Healing changes the questions you ask. You stop asking, do you want me?
You start asking, do you respect my peace?

You stop being impressed by grand gestures that are not backed by character. You stop romanticizing emotional chaos. You notice tone. You notice patterns. You notice how you feel after conversations.

That is when love starts feeling complicated. Because many people are still offering the version of love you have outgrown.

There is Tunde too. Tunde used to believe that love meant endurance. If it hurt, it meant it was serious. If he had to prove himself constantly, it meant he cared deeply. He learned this early. From home. From church. From watching the strongest people stay silent through pain.

ALSO READ:

Then he started healing. Therapy taught him language for things he used to swallow. Faith taught him that suffering is not the same as sacrifice. Growth taught him that love does not have to feel like a test you are constantly failing.

Now when someone dismisses his feelings or jokes about his boundaries, he feels something close up inside him. Not anger. Just a quiet no. And he wonders, why does love feel so far away? Healing makes you less impressed.

What once felt thrilling now feels unsafe. What once felt deep now feels draining. What once felt romantic now feels familiar in the wrong way.

This is where loneliness sneaks in. Not the loud kind.
The quiet kind that shows up when you are doing everything right but still sleeping alone.

When you stop bending, fewer people fit. When you stop chasing, fewer people approach. When you stop confusing intensity with intimacy, your options reduce, at least for a while. This is the part nobody prepares you for. Healing can feel like losing people before it feels like gaining peace. Faith, when it is honest, does not rush this stage. Sometimes God heals you before sending anyone new. Sometimes the work is learning how to sit in wholeness without asking another person to complete it. Sometimes the silence is not punishment. It is alignment.

Love feels harder because you are no longer auditioning for it. You are discerning. You are listening to your body when something feels off. You are trusting your spirit when something feels rushed. You are choosing calm over chemistry that costs too much. And that choice can feel heavy at first. But it is not loss. It is direction.

Healing does not make you harder to love. It makes love more specific. Not every connection is lost. Some are simply no longer allowed. Peace is not the absence of love. It is often love done right.

And when you realize that you do not rush to fill the space. You sit there for a while. Breathing. Trusting that what arrives next will not ask you to unlearn yourself just to stay.

MORE ARTICLES: