u/Environmentalcutie

How do you care for someone who insists on loving you from a distance? Or is it even love?

Every step you take toward them becomes an invitation for them to step back. When you try to name the space between you, they silence it—as if unspoken things cannot wound.

You reach, they retreat. They return, and you remain, but never fully—learning to hold parts of yourself in reserve, because you know the withdrawal is around the corner.

It becomes a quiet choreography of pursuit and hesitation, closeness and retreat. But the rhythm is uneven, and the cost is not shared.

Because in the end, only one heart waits.

And it is almost always yours.

This is a common comment that I hear from my narc-mom and golden child- sister all the time (usually when they violate boundaries or are looking for triggers):

"I should be able to say anything to you, and you shouldn't get upset."

It's so ludacris...