Don’t go home

There’s a belief that “home” can be found in another individual. At first glance, this may appear to be a heartwarming, predestined happening, worthy of celebration (and it may very well be). However, you must first determine exactly what “home” means to you. This takes honest, intentional objectivity.

If home to you meant a place of acceptance, patience, humor, and unconditional love, then you are truly blessed. By all means, rejoice in your newfound connection and disregard what I am about to say. This is for the others: those that home had been a place of judgment, rejection, neglect, uncertainty, and pain. To those are the ones I write.

Your particular home environment inured you to abuse. We humans are designed to identify and follow patterns, regardless if they are ultimately to our detriment. It is easy to confuse that intense, familiar feeling for love and grant the person full access to you. Taking the step into emotional intimacy is a painful mistake. I wish there were a more kind way to say that, but there simply is not.

Just because someone feels like “home” does not always mean that is an inherently good thing. Please consider doing the work first to define what home means to you. Sometimes home is the very last place you should ever return.