“Love is like a cigarette

Burning at the tip of it, but quick to burn out

Like a cigarette, it may get you sick

But you'll never get sick of it

So light one up now”

from Cigarette by Offonoff ft. Tablo, MISO

That was love to me when I was younger. Addictive. Sweet for a brief moment, and then not. Sometimes toxic, wasting my emotion and my time, and I called that romance. I had energy to spare for dating in the middle of the night because I could not handle being lonely. Breakups left scars, and those scars took up room in my head that should have gone somewhere else. I did a lot of things to look cool. I pretended to be effortless in front of women when I wanted her to stay more than anything.

Then the pandemic came, and the late nights stopped.

My feelings were not relevant to my priorities. Love was not going to carry me anywhere on its own. You need money. You need a stable job. That sounds unromantic. The turning point came with the woman who became my wife. Partly aging, partly responsibility—breadwinner, head of a household, someone other people depend on. I knew she was the right person. I did not fall into it. I decided.

What I share with her is conditional love, and I mean that as a compliment. The conditions are mine, not hers—terms I hold myself to. Small acts of kindness. Romantic gestures. Physical contact, which is not optional. Never making her worry unless it is necessary, and never letting her feel lonely inside her own marriage. A happy household is not possible with a sad partner. And the fun, caring person I was on our first date does not get to retire after the wedding.

Then I became a father to a baby girl. That love is unconditional. There is nothing to maintain, because there is nothing that could revoke it. She owes me nothing. She never will.

James Clear writes in Atomic Habits that lasting habits come from identity, not goals. You do not run to finish a race. You run because you are a runner. I am not doing this to earn a happy marriage or a healthy child. I do it because I decided who I am.