Adel B.

When Love feels Like A Chore; And why That Might Be A Good Sign

image

Table of Contents

I used to have a weird resistance to “good morning” and “good night” texts; Not because i disliked the person. not because i didn’t care. but because those messages felt like the beginning of something that turns sour in slow motion: a sweet habit that gradually becomes a requirement. a ritual that starts as affection and ends as an attendance check. and i’ve always been afraid of that specific kind of love. the kind where intimacy becomes performance. where responsibility becomes pressure. where the relationship quietly installs a daily quota: prove you’re here, prove you care, prove you’re good. (which is funny, because the “smallest” things are usually the ones that carry the heaviest symbolic baggage. the text isn’t a text. it’s a referendum.) but then someone said something that cracked the whole structure open.

What if it really is a chore

what if, sometimes, care is repetitive?

what if love isn’t always this emotional overflow—some spontaneous gush of feeling that naturally produces the right gestures at the right time? what if love is also… maintenance? I always translated “chore” as “meaningless”. like a task you do with dead eyes because someone will be disappointed if you don’t. but maybe i was using the wrong metaphor (or i was using the right metaphor, in the wrong emotional key). Maybe it’s less like “doing the dishes because you have to,” and more like brushing your teeth: daily. boring. necessary

When you brush your teeth, you’re not trying to prove you’re a good person. you’re taking care of something you intend to keep. that idea changed the emotional math for me.

The real question

Once I let the “chore” idea in, a sharper question appeared (the way it does when you refactor something and suddenly you realize the bug wasn’t in the function, it was in the assumptions): am i doing this because it means something to me… or because i’m trying to meet a standard?

Here’s where it gets complicated: i don’t always feel a natural urge to send the message. i don’t wake up overflowing with “good morning energy.” sometimes i even feel myself bracing, like i’m ticking something off a list, and yet I look forward to them seeing it. I imagine their reaction and it makes the action feel worthwhile. and often, after i send it, something surprising happens: I feel warm. connected. glad i reached out.

So what is that? affection? performance? obligation? care? The honest answer is: it’s ambivalence. and ambivalence is not the same as inauthenticity. (it’s just… mixed signals inside one person. which is basically the default human condition.)

Resistance is not always a lie

We love to treat resistance as evidence: if i don’t feel like doing it, it must not be real. but that assumes authenticity always feels effortless. it doesn’t.

Sometimes resistance is just the friction of growth. the discomfort of becoming someone who can hold a deeper kind of love—one that isn’t only poetic, but consistent. one that doesn’t rely on the mood being perfect, or the vibe being immaculate, or the internal weather report saying “sunny with a chance of romance.”

That doesn’t make it fake. It might actually mean you’re learning something new: how to act from intention instead of impulse.

Why the small gesture can feel so loaded

At some point, we started talking about why something as tiny as a daily text can feel so psychologically heavy. and this is where the old psychoanalytic ghosts walk in—Freud, Jung, and Lacan, like three weird uncles with flashlights, insisting that nothing is ever just what it is.

Freud: the split inside you

Freud might say you’re divided:

so the text becomes symbolic. it’s no longer “good morning,” it’s “submit proof of love.”

Jung: your shadow wants its freedom

Jung might say your “shadow” is involved. the part of you that resents responsibility when it threatens autonomy. not because you’re bad. because you’re human. somewhere inside, there’s a rebel who hears “every morning and night” and thinks: so now i’m owned?

Lacan: who are you really talking to?

Lacan would make it weirder (as he always does) and ask:

is this message for your partner… or for the Other?

Not “the other person,” but the Big Other: the invisible social audience in your head. the judge. the abstract idea of what a “good partner” looks like. the imagined standard you’re trying to satisfy so you can feel lovable.

Because maybe part of my fear of performance wasn’t about faking love. Maybe it was about not wanting love to become a stage where i’m constantly auditioning for the role of “good.”

The line is after the act

Here’s the part that finally gave me a clean way to navigate it:

The difference between performance and affection often shows up in how you feel after, not just before.

If i send the message and feel flat, robotic, resentful—then yeah, i probably crossed into obligation. but if i send it and feel even slightly more grounded, more connected, more open—then something real happened, even if it didn’t start as a spontaneous urge. that means the act wasn’t forced.

It was chosen, and that matters.

Choosing

Underneath all this is a quieter question that matters more than “do i feel like texting?” who am i trying to become in love? because feelings are weather. they change. but character is climate. and i know the kind of lover i want to be: intentional, present, empowering. someone who shows up in small ways without making the other person beg for proof. someone whose love feels like air, not pressure. care, for me, isn’t constant communication. it’s not possession. it’s not fixing. it’s thoughtfulness. it’s subtle empowerment. it’s choosing, again and again, to be someone who contributes warmth to the shared space. sometimes that choice feels effortless. sometimes it feels like brushing your teeth. both can be love.

A different definition of chore

Maybe the goal isn’t to eliminate all chore-ness from love. maybe the goal is to make sure the “chores” are anchored in meaning—not in fear. not “i have to do this or i’ll be punished.” but: “i do this because i value what it creates.” because the tiny daily gestures aren’t just about the gesture. they’re about building a relationship where care is reliable—not dramatic, not performative, not transactional. just… there. and if your resistance flares up?

It doesn’t necessarily mean the love isn’t real. It might mean you’re standing at the edge of a deeper version of it.