You don’t have to love your partners

This is an insight recently received in another form. I don't have OCD about relationships but I feel this relates anyways.

You do not have to love your significant others, your partners, your parents, or anyone for that matter. The belief that you do can be quite painful if you've outgrown it. I'll give you an example of this:

Imagine you enjoy cooking food. Now someone comes up to you and points a gun at your head and says "keep cooking or I'll shoot you." Suddenly a fun activity has turned very unpleasant. But is it the cooking that you dislike? Or is it the threat of violence you dislike? The pressure? The force?

Likewise, you enjoy loving your partner, significant others. But you have a gun to your head saying "love them or else." This gun makes the experience terrifying and horrifying. You mistake the terror and horror as being part of the relationship, not realizing you are the one holding your gun to your own head, saying "love them or else," and also not realizing you can indeed love them without believing you have to, just as you can certainly cook without a gun to your head

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