What If You Didn’t Need Saving? Discover the Strength of Coming Home to Yourself

Image by Николай Оберемченко from Pixabay

Growing up, one of my main aspirations was to find the man of my dreams. Not a specific man, but someone to fill a deep childhood and cultural wiring for the white knight, someone to make me feel safe, protected, cherished. It’s a longing many of us carry, especially if we grew up feeling emotionally unseen. It’s not about fantasy or helplessness; it’s about a longing to feel held and safe, to be seen and supported, just as we were taught to care for others.

That said, it wasn’t that I was ever bereft of attention, I’ve have the good fortune to love and be loved by many people, but there was one who took my heart by storm, before I even knew what was happening.

I met him one night waiting at Glasgow Central Station with uni friends. I knew most of the group, but not him. When he walked across the forecourt, I was a goner. He had a slight lilt to his gait, and though he smoked (which I didn’t like) I fell hard regardless.

At the time, I was already engaged. I knew it was not “cool” to have feelings for someone else, so I broke off my engagement and, a couple if weeks later, went on a date with the he who’d stolen my heart.

We were eighteen. He was the youngest of three and the only boy. His mum adored him but disliked me. I was the first girlfriend he brought home, and while she never said it outright, her disapproval was clear. Maybe because she had other plans for her son: study, travel, a freer life than she imagined I might offer.

Usually parents liked me, so this was new. Still, I was head over heels. He was funny, quirky, effortlessly cool. One summer we worked abroad together and, on the surface, it was magical - sun-drenched days and late-night laughter, far from real-life pressures. But cracks formed. I ended up in hospital with bronchitis, then flew home to resit failed exams. We argued.

One night, he and my cousin disappeared for what felt like hours, going to get takeout food after work, and then bumping into friends on the way back, losing track of time. Meanwhile, back at the apartment, I spiralled, left alone too long, and took off after them, furious. Looking back, I see how anxious I was, how fear quickly became control. I didn’t yet know how to hold my feelings without overreacting.

Back at uni, with separate homes and family dynamics, distance grew. I wanted more. He pulled away. We fought. In hindsight, it was the classic anxious-avoidant dance: I chased connection; he craved space.

Yet, despite it all, he was a decent boyfriend; faithful, affectionate. Our dates often lasted all night. He was just… two hours late sometimes. Still, I forgave it. I loved him.

I recall one night he said something about how I had depths and gifts the world needed, something rare and unusual. I don’t remember his exact words, but he saw something in me I hadn’t yet recognised: I wasn’t fully myself back then.

Eventually, the pressure of “what’s next?” undid us. His best friend got engaged, and our differences surfaced. I wanted certainty. He didn’t. We broke up after nearly two years. I was devastated.

Honestly, it affected me for decades. I didn’t wait around, I moved countries, got married, kept moving forward. He met someone at work six months after uni; they married, had three kids, a stable life. But the feeling of lack stayed with me.

Occasionally I’ve imagined what life would have been like if we’d stayed together. While it might’ve looked good on the outside, I suspect it would have felt small.

Losing him triggered a rejection of parts of myself that took years to reclaim. Only in the last decade have I begun to come fully home to who I truly am.

When I look back on that younger version of me, the one who gave everything to love. I wonder: what was that really? He felt archetypically cool, yes. He made me laugh. He opened something in me. But there was always an ache in my heart, even when we were together. His feelings never quite met mine.

And I wonder: if they had, would it have been healthy? Would it have worked? Sure, he saw something in me that night, something I hadn’t yet recognised in myself. But a moment of recognition isn’t the same as a relationship built on mutual depth. Looking back, I had an intense experience of loving, but I wasn’t truly met there. Not in that soul-level, 'I see you, I’m here with you' kind of way.

I think that kind of thunderbolt love is real, it can light a fire in us, but sustaining it takes more than chemistry. It takes presence, maturity, and mutual willingness to evolve. Still, I wouldn’t change it. It taught me the shape of my heart. It taught me what it feels like to be cracked open. And maybe, most importantly, it ultimately showed me that love should never require the act of self abandonment.

What hurt the most wasn’t just the loss of the relationship, it was the way I rejected myself in the aftermath. I carried this silent belief that I wasn’t enough. That if I’d been funnier, cooler, easier, maybe he’d have stayed. And so, bit by bit, I abandoned parts of myself. The boldness. The dreams. The knowing.

It’s taken me years - decades, even - to find my way back. To stop chasing someone else’s love and start taking root in my own. For someone with emotional intelligence, who feels deeply and lives in the nuance, these days I don’t confuse that ache for love. I recognise it as a signal to turn inward, to listen more deeply, and to stand by myself with the same loyalty I once gave away so freely.

Where’s the Middle Ground?

One thing I’m wary of is swinging from one unhealthy way of relating to another. I’ve been thinking about the way we all sit somewhere on a kind of relational spectrum.

At one end: people who will sacrifice relationships in an instant if it means protecting their needs, space, or autonomy. At the other: those who will sacrifice themselves over and over again to preserve a relationship, even when it hurts.

I’ve danced at both ends, if I’m honest. But mostly, I’ve lived closer to that second end, trying to keep the peace, bending to be understood, over-functioning so things don’t fall apart.

And it’s exhausting.

It’s easy to think the “right” place must be somewhere in the middle, a balance of give and take. But that raises more questions:

What does a healthy middle ground actually look like? Does it involve sacrifice at all? Or is the whole premise built on a flawed idea, that someone has to lose for a relationship to hold?

Maybe, instead, the middle isn’t about sacrifice. Maybe it’s about self-honouring and mutual respect.

It’s what secure attachment looks like, a place where I don’t abandon myself, but I also don’t harden to the needs of others. Where I can express clearly without contorting… and listen openly without disappearing. Where connection doesn’t require losing myself, and boundaries aren’t barriers but bridges.

It’s not a neat place. It’s a living practice. But I think that’s where true relating begins, not in choosing who wins or loses, but in choosing presence over protection.

So I have been doing the so-called brave, messy work of riding the emotional edges that many seem to avoid at all cost – at the cost of really living - coming out the other side with more presence and self-awareness. It can feel almost jarring when I’m with someone who stays surface-level or numbs. It’s like reaching out underwater and not feeling anything pressing back.

While the thunderbolt love lit something in me, it’s the quiet, steady love I’ve found for myself that’s changed everything. I no longer need a partner to match my emotional bandwidth, but to value it, to recognise the depth I bring as sacred, not inconvenient. To not shy away when things get intense. To have the capacity, even if not the same instinct, to meet me there.

That deep childhood wiring for the white knight still feels lovely to dream about, even now. The fantasy isn’t bad. Wanting to be cared for, soothed, seen in our softness, it’s tender and human. There’s no shame in that desire.

But what I’m waking up to, and embodying more and more, is the deeper truth that the feeling of safety doesn’t arrive on a white horse, it rises up from the ground of my own self-trust. It comes when we no longer abandon ourselves to be loved. When we speak our needs without apology. When we stop reaching out before we’ve tuned in.

So yes, these days, with someone kind and steady walking beside me, that’s a beautiful gift. But I no longer need them to rescue me from my own life. Because I am here now for me. And that changes everything.

These days, what matters most in a relationship isn’t perfection or certainty, but presence. A willingness to stay in it together, even when life feels heavy. Especially then.

It’s not about having all the answers, but about showing up with honesty. Holding your own centre while standing beside someone who’s doing the same. Not checking out or handing away your power when things get uncomfortable, but staying open, staying in it.

I want to walk alongside someone who’s finding their voice, not because I need them to carry me, but because I no longer pretend I can carry both of us.

That’s what partnership looks like now: two people stretched by life, still choosing to be in it. Not perfectly. Not always smoothly. But willingly.

Love like that doesn’t ask you to abandon yourself. It meets you where you are, and says: I’m here too.

We don’t need to be rescued. We need to be met.

And before anyone else can do that, we have to meet ourselves - fully, honestly, with all the parts we once abandoned just to feel loved.

So if there’s a piece of you still waiting at the station, heart in hand… maybe it’s time to bring her home.

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