Overgiving Is Not the Same as Loving Well

Nene spent her whole Sunday in that man's kitchen.

Chicken in the oven, rice on the stove, five glass containers lined up on the counter like soldiers.

Lunch for his entire work week.

And where was he? On the couch.

Football on.

Every twenty minutes or so: babe, is the food ready? Babe.

The food.

Ready.

Lordt.

She washed the pot while the chicken finished.

Wiped his counters.

Tied up his trash and carried it out.

Her own groceries were sitting in the trunk of her car the whole time, getting warm.

She had planned to cook for herself too.

By the time she got home it was dark, she was tired, and she ate toast standing at the counter.

Toast.

After cooking a whole week of food.

Now before somebody comes for me, let me say it.

There is nothing wrong with cooking for your man.

Eva, so we can't help our boyfriends anymore? Yes, sis, you can.

One Sunday is not the problem.

The problem is what that Sunday was sitting on top of, and what kept piling up after it.

It was never one favor That Thursday he needed someone at his apartment for a maintenance guy.

He couldn't miss work.

Well, neither could she.

But her job could be done on a laptop, so somehow that made her day the movable one.

You see how that works? Her flexibility became his plan.

His internet kept dropping, so she worked off her phone hotspot.

Took a meeting with her camera off because the background was his laundry.

The maintenance guy came two hours after the window.

When it was finally done she texted him: All sorted.

Are we doing dinner when you get back? He had plans with the boys.

Thanks babe, can you lock up? She looked at that message for a long time.

Then she typed, No problem.

And listen, there was a problem.

She just didn't want to be one.

Then came the airport.

His flight was early, so she was up at 4, in the car by 5, and she moved her own meeting so she wouldn't be rushing back.

Did she tell him she moved it? Of course not.

She wanted him to notice the effort without her having to announce it.

But how was this man supposed to notice a meeting he didn't even know existed? I'm asking for Nene.

And for some of us.

So he didn't notice.

She felt hurt.

Then she felt petty for feeling hurt.

And what do we do when we feel petty? We overcorrect.

The next time he needed something, she gave a little more.

This woman was exhausted and still out here looking for new ways to be helpful.

Whew.

He mentioned a bill in passing one evening.

Not asked.

Mentioned.

She sent the money that night, the same money she had been setting aside for new tires she actually needed.

She stayed up editing his CV while he snored.

She listened to him unpack his hard week for an hour.

When she started on hers, he was yawning.

She knew which meals he liked, his dentist appointment, his mother's birthday.

He needed a phone reminder for hers.

And she had all the explanations ready.

Dates are not his thing.

Planning is not his thing.

Asking about my day, apparently, is also not his thing.

But receiving? Oh, receiving was very much his thing.

He was excellent at that one.

She skipped lunch with her sister because he might be free that afternoon.

He wasn't.

Her laundry sat in a basket so long she was pulling work clothes out of it one morning at a time.

His week was handled.

Hers was something she would get to when she had a minute.

She never had a minute.

What she kept telling herself Nene would have told you she was not buying love.

She was showing him what a good woman looks like.

He had been hurt before.

He was under pressure at work.

And one night he said, nobody has ever supported me like you do.

She held onto that sentence like a receipt.

See? He knows what he has.

And this stressful season would pass, right? Then another one came.

And another one.

Her needs kept getting pushed to some future version of his life that never showed up.

She would write him long messages about feeling lonely.

Read them back.

Delete the part that sounded angry.

Delete the part that might make him feel guilty.

Soften the rest.

By the time she was done protecting him from her own feelings, there was nothing left to send.

Half the time she deleted the whole thing and sent a heart.

Here's the thing nobody tells you.

Being needed feels a whole lot like being chosen.

Close enough that she stopped checking the difference.

When something went wrong, he called her first, and she felt important.

When everything was fine, she waited by the phone.

Nene was not tired because she helped him once.

She was tired because helping him had become the price of belonging.

And yes, she brought God into it.

God, help me love this man well.

Help me be patient.

She meant every word.

But underneath that prayer was another one she never said out loud.

Lord, please let all this effort make him choose me.

The Friday she couldn't fake it anymore They finally had a whole Friday evening planned.

She bought the food, said no to her girlfriends, cleaned her place.

Around 5 he texted.

Something came up.

Rain check? Rain check.

Again.

She put the food in the fridge and sat at her kitchen table.

No call to argue.

No long message.

She was too tired to explain a feeling she had already explained ten different ways.

The phone was right there and she didn't even want to touch it.

And that scared her.

Because usually she had his excuse ready before she even finished being upset.

Not this time.

She had a headache, she hadn't eaten properly all day, and her own kitchen looked like it belonged to a woman who lived somewhere else.

She cried.

Then she prayed, and it was not a pretty prayer.

God, I am hurt.

I am angry.

Why do I keep doing this? What am I supposed to learn here? And sitting with that question, she had to admit something she did not like one bit.

Every favor had been a deposit.

She wasn't giving and letting it go.

She was waiting for it to turn into commitment.

Like if she did enough, cooked enough, showed up early enough, he would finally look up from the couch and say, this one.

I'm keeping this one.

Oh, it would have been so much easier to stop at everything he did wrong.

And trust me, there was a list.

But his list didn't explain why she kept signing up for a life that had no room for her in it.

She could name it now.

She had been auditioning.

For a man who never even bought a ticket to the show.

And honestly? She was embarrassed at how long she had called that love.

God was not asking her to disappear Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

Nene had been leaning on verses like this one to keep going.

But let's be honest about what she did with it.

Doing good is not the same as earning a relationship.

That verse is not a promise that enough meal prep will make one particular man ready to love her.

God never made that deal.

She did.

And then she got mad at heaven when the deal didn't pay out.

She also had to stop treating her own needs like interruptions.

Food.

Sleep.

Her work.

Lunch with her sister.

Those things don't become selfish just because somebody else wants your afternoon.

Then he said to them, come away by yourselves to a quiet place and rest a while.

For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

Jesus Himself told the disciples to go eat and rest.

Jesus! And Nene was skipping her own meals to pack somebody else's.

She didn't need to love less.

She needed to eat, tell the truth, and stop promising hours she didn't have.

When she stopped saying yes right away She started small.

Really small.

The next time he asked for something, she didn't answer on the spot.

Let me check what I have that day.

That's it.

A completely normal sentence.

Her stomach still flipped the first time she said it, like she had cussed in church.

She kept the appointment she normally would have moved.

She went to lunch with her sister.

When the next maintenance visit came up, she told him she couldn't cover it.

And guess what? He figured it out.

The man found a way.

The world kept spinning and she didn't lose a workday.

Imagine that.

Not every no felt good.

Some days she wanted to offer anyway, just to get that thanks babe and feel close to him again.

She had to sit in that feeling instead of turning it into another errand.

And that's when she saw how much of their connection depended on her having something to do for him.

Loving well would have left room for her to be tired too.

For her work to matter.

For him to make a plan and keep it, and ask about her day without needing something first.

I wrote more about that in what healthy love actually requires .

That's not asking for a man who never has a hard week.

It's asking for a relationship where only one person's hard week doesn't count.

Nene also had to look at why being useful felt so safe to her in the first place.

There's more on that in why you keep attracting unavailable men .

His behavior mattered.

So did the hope that kept her excusing it.

And the way her own life kept sliding to the bottom of every list? That's what I mean by self abandonment, the quiet habit .

Nobody stands up and announces, I am giving myself away now.

It happens one little yes at a time.

Start here today Nene started with what actually happened, not what she hoped it meant.

She wrote it down.

The Sunday meals.

The missed lunch.

The workday in his apartment.

The Friday rain check.

Then next to each one, she wrote what she had needed that day.

Seeing both on the same page was uncomfortable.

It was also a lot harder to explain away.

She didn't have to turn every kind thing she ever did into a mistake.

Some of it was freely given, and that's beautiful.

Some of it wasn't.

She could tell which was which by remembering the fear that came before the yes, and the disappointment that came after, when the favor didn't bring her one inch closer to him.

She kept asking God what she was supposed to learn.

Not just about him.

About her.

Why was it easier to fold his laundry than say, I want to be considered? Why did keeping a Sunday for herself feel like a crime? She didn't answer those in one evening.

Some of us are still answering them.

That weekend she bought groceries for her own kitchen.

Cooked something she actually liked.

Put her phone face down and ate at her own table.

Did it fix everything? No.

But that meal was hers, and she didn't have to wait for somebody to cancel before she could enjoy it.

Nene still wanted love.

She didn't suddenly become a woman who needs nobody.

She wanted company, affection, somebody to tell about her day.

But she finally saw that doing more for him was never going to answer the real question.

Did he want to make room for her? Or did he just enjoy all the room she kept making for him? That's the difference I want us to be honest about, sis.

Helping your partner is not the problem.

Feeling like you have to stay useful to stay wanted? That's a whole different thing.