The Unlearning of Love

By Rebecca Townsend, with Andy beside me in the becoming

A Manifesto for Overfunctioning Couples Who Want Something Real

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I didn’t become a therapist because I had it all figured out.

I became a therapist because pain felt familiar—

and helping other people quieted the ache in my own bones.

What looked like compassion was often control.

What looked like overgiving was just me

trying to earn the kind of love

I didn’t yet know how to receive.

I was the girl who read the room before I knew how to read books.

Who fixed before she was asked.

Who carried the weight of everyone else’s feelings

just to feel a little safer in her own skin.

That girl?

She grew up.

She built a life around helping.

A practice. A reputation. A calling.

But somewhere along the way, I realized:

If your worth is tied to someone else’s healing,

you’ll live on the edge of burnout—

always waiting for their breakthrough to validate your own.

You’ll confuse love with labor.

Closeness with control.

Safety with self-sacrifice.

So I began unlearning.

Unhooking love from performance.

Rescue from relationship.

Fixing from worthiness.

And in that undoing, I found something I never expected:

A man who didn’t need me to be perfect to be precious.

A love that didn’t require labor.

A partnership where care isn’t currency—it’s communion.

Andy didn’t become a therapist.

But he’s spent 32 years leading soldiers—

caring, mentoring, protecting.

He’s lived a life of quiet strength,

of showing up in storms,

of choosing integrity over image.

His story is different than mine.

But it led him here too.

Together, we’re practicing what it means

to love without rescuing.

To support without controlling.

To stay rooted, even when the other is unraveling.

And we want you to know:

We’re still in it.

This unlearning is not a finished chapter.

It’s a daily practice.

Because old stories have a way of regenerating—

especially when pain gets triggered or fear takes the mic.

Sometimes, we still catch ourselves slipping back

into the habits that once kept us safe

but no longer serve us.

We’re not here because we’ve mastered it.

We’re here because we’re committed to practicing it—together.

This work—our work—doesn’t come from a pedestal.

It comes from the fire.

From the tender, trembling middle.

From a thousand tiny moments

of choosing presence over fixing

and truth over performance.

We’re not here to teach perfection.

We’re here to share the unlearning.

To hold space for love that’s built, not bartered.

Because you don’t have to fix to be loved.

You just have to believe you’re worthy

exactly as you are.

As you take in this manifesto, consider these questions—not to analyze, but to gently listen to your own story:

• What are you beginning to unlearn about love, safety, or your worth inside relationship?
  
  
• What parts of your love story were shaped by roles you thought you had to play—rather than who you truly are?
  
  

You don’t need polished answers.

Just a quiet moment of truth.

That’s where the healing begins.