Walking in Borrowed Shoes: The Right Way to Love

To love the right way is not at all proving anyone right. It is to place the relationship above the righteousness of your response.

It’s easy to let words spill in the heat of the moment, to gallop with pride, to win the argument, but what is gained when winning costs you the tenderness of a bond? What is gained when righteousness silences love in your relationship?

Love asks us to ‘pause’, to hold our horses long enough to ask: What made them act this way? What storm, what silence, what hidden weight lies beneath their choices? Because behind every action is a reason, and behind every reaction is a story. If we pause long enough to understand, we give love the space to breathe. Sometimes your questions gives you chance to understand how the person stands in storm rather than your suggestions suggesting to stay strong.

Any relationship demands presence more than your presents. Your time, your care, your affection and your little attention saves you from loosing the person.

Let me share a lived experience with you all.

A young woman once set out on a journey, an official trip that also carried the spirit of a solo adventure. The destination was a revered religious site in India, nestled among mountains known for their unpredictable terrains.

Halfway through, news broke of landslides ahead. She could have forced her way through, but wisdom guided her to stop. She paused her journey at the midway town, choosing safety over recklessness and that pause, instead of bringing peace, unfolded into another test.

As a solo female traveler, she was stunned with the invisible walls society builds around women. Hotels and guesthouses which were welcoming to men and families, turned her away. Those that did agree quoted prices fifteen times higher, for rooms unfit for even an hour’s stay, super unhygienic and uncomfortable for any human to live in.

She walked for almost three long hours with heavy luggage on her back and tiredness in her bones, searching for dignity more than comfort. Finally, a stranger stepped forward. A man. He offered his ID card so she could book a room, though he himself was staying elsewhere.

She didn’t need luxury; she didn’t even plan to stay the night. She only wanted to freshen up, to breathe, to gather herself before moving on. After successfully convincing him, assuring him, she used the room for an hour, then left to find a proper place to stay.

Later that evening, weary but relieved, she got a call from a friend she trusted the most. She wanted to share her experience, not the facts alone, but the feelings too, the loneliness of the search, the frustration of closed doors, the vulnerability of accepting a stranger’s help.

But before she could pour her heart out, the friend cut her short: “You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have trusted a man like that. You should’ve found another way.”

There was no “Are you okay?” No “Where are you now?” No “How can I help you feel safe?”

Just judgment and righteousness. As if proving he was right mattered more than understanding how she felt.

This is where love often fades, when we value being right over being kind. The young woman wasn’t asking for solutions cause she already came out of that storm. She wasn’t asking anything from him. She wanted her vulnerability held with gentleness. But instead of respect, she received righteousness.

This is the danger: when we fail to pause, we fail to see. When we rush to prove, we forget to listen. When we argue to be correct, we miss the chance to connect.

Respecting perspectives doesn’t mean blindly agreeing with everything. It means giving the other person the gift of being heard and understood. It means saying: “I may not stand where you stand, but I will walk in your shoes long enough to know where they pinch.”

It is not weakness to hold back a reaction. It is wisdom.

In that pause, love stretches wider than difference.

True strength in relationships is not in sameness. It is in unity without uniformity — the ability to hold two perspectives without shattering the bond.

So, the right way to love is:

To listen before you respond.

To see the person before the mistake.

To value the bond over the battle.

Because sometimes, the bravest act of love is not to win an argument, but to let someone feel they belong.

The power of pause doesn’t silence love, it saves it.