Why Love Is Not Enough & 5 Things to Focus On More in Dating & Relationships

Do you and your partner share values? How do you support each other emotionally? Today, Jay taps into the idea that love alone is not sufficient to sustain a healthy relationship. While love is important, other elements such as shared values, emotional maturity, consistent patterns of behavior, and trust are crucial for long-lasting partnerships. Societal norms often romanticize love, leading people to overlook these essential factors. Jay discusses the significance of understanding and respecting each other's values, as well as recognizing and addressing patterns of behavior. Emotional maturity, which involves managing and expressing emotions healthily, is highlighted as a key component of a stable relationship. Support and partnership are deemed more critical than love alone. In this episode, you'll learn: How to communicate your value to your partner How to develop emotional maturity How to support your partner's emotional growth How to build trust in your relationship Remember, love is important, but building a relationship on trust, values, and emotional maturity is key. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:07 Do They Love Me? 04:42 #1: Love Makes Us Forget the Importance of Values 08:56 #2: Love Makes You Forget Patterns of Behaviour 16:09 #3: Love Makes You Forget How They Treat You 19:29 #4: Love Versus Support 21:46 #5: You Forget the Importance of Trust See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:43Jay Shetty?

  Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop.

• 1:26Jay Shetty?

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• 2:10Jay Shetty?

  Safety features designed to help keep you more aware, more connected and more engaged with the road ahead. It's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand and has won more 2026 IIHS Top Safety Pick Plus Awards than any other car brand as of July 2026. Visit www.iihs.org to learn more. A lot can happen when an accident doesn't. Visit MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. The healthiest, longest-lasting relationships are based on peace. Pleasure may start relationships, peace continues relationships. I saw a quote the other day that said, "If your home is a place of peace, you've broken the cycle."

• 2:56Speaker 01

  The number one health and wellness podcast.

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Jay Shetty.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Jay Shetty.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  The one, the only Jay Shetty.

• 3:04Jay Shetty?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I'm so, so happy to be with you. It's your host, Jay Shetty, and I couldn't be more grateful that you tuned in today, especially to this episode, all about the reasons why love is not enough and what to focus on more in dating and relationships. If you're someone who's been trying to fall in love, trying to find love, looking for love, this episode is for you. If you're someone who's kind of falling in and out of love, trying to figure out whether you're still in love with the person, this episode is for you. And if you're one of those people that had to walk away from love,

• 3:44Jay Shetty?

  this episode is for you. Now, I was thinking, as I was reflecting on this topic, about that old game that I think I used to watch people play in primary school, elementary school, where someone would grab a daisy and the game would go, "He loves me, he loves me not." And I was looking this up on the internet and it was talking about how this is a game of French origin in which one person seeks to determine whether the object of their affection returns that affection. Fancy way of saying, "He loves me, he loves me not." Now, what was interesting about that is this idea that we are constantly, since we're young,

• 4:30Jay Shetty?

  Train to ask that question. Do they love me? Do they love me yet? Are they in love with me? When will they be in love with me? When will they tell me they love me? And the same back. Do I love them? Am I ready to love them? But here's what I wanna ask you in this episode. Have you ever felt you loved someone? But knew they weren't right for you? Let me say that again. Have you ever felt you loved someone? But knew they weren't right for you? How many times have you been in that position before? Or you love someone? But they weren't good to you? How many of you have experienced that? Where you love someone? You had strong feelings for someone? But they weren't good to you?

• 5:15Jay Shetty?

  Maybe you're in that position right now? And I'm so happy that you're listening to this episode. Or maybe you loved them? But you didn't trust them? How many of you know someone? Who's dating someone right now? Where they say they love them? But you know they don't trust them? And what's really interesting about all of this? Is we'll, we often hear our friends, our family members, people we love? Make excuses for people that they're dating like. Oh yeah, he loves me. But you know, sometimes I wonder why he doesn't care. Or she loves me? But sometimes I wonder whether she's just with me for fill in the blank. Here's the reality. If they loved you? They'd call. If they loved you?

• 6:01Jay Shetty?

  They'd care. If they loved you? They'd ask. If they loved you? You'd know. And often our feelings of love for someone? Make us forget? That love is not enough? Because what we really want? Is not just someone to say, I love you. We want someone who makes us feel loved? Makes us feel cared for? Makes us feel seen, heard, understood? And someone that we do that back to? We don't want someone who just says they love us. We want someone who lives like they do. We want the actions. We want the behaviors. And so when I say love is not enough? It's not because I wanna be negative.

• 6:47Jay Shetty?

  It's not because I want to put it down on love. It's because so many of us place love on this pedestal? And we. Believe that love is enough because we've been told that love is all we need. Right? That's what we've been told. That's what we've repeated. And so I want to talk today about what we should focus on, what we should notice, what we should amplify in our relationships in order to make sure that we're not misled by what we think is love. Partly, one of the challenges is that we live in a world where we only have one word for love.

• 7:30Jay Shetty?

  But the Greeks had seven words for love. The Vedas have five words for love. Love was far more of a detailed, complex topic, and it's become oversimplified in our modern day. So, love makes us forget the importance of values. How many times have you sacrificed, negotiated with, or put aside one of your values because you thought you loved someone? Right? So you had a really important value. Maybe you had an event that was really important to you. Maybe you had a person that was really important to you, a friendship. But you put it aside because you thought you were in love with someone. How many times have you ever regretted that in the future?

• 8:16Jay Shetty?

  How many times did you feel, "That was the best thing I ever did"? It's really interesting, isn't it, that if we love someone, we often forego our values. We put aside our values. When actually, if someone loved us, they would never let us do that. That wouldn't be the way they'd want us to act. And so values are such a critical part of the love setup. This is one of the reasons why, when I've become a relationship advisor at Match, one of the first things we built was a value-based assessment. This was to help you with a quiz to understand your own values so that we could pair you with other people who are A. self-aware about their values and B. may even share similar values.

• 8:59Jay Shetty?

  If you want to check that out, you can go to match.com/j. And that was so important to me because I wanted us to recognize that love is not enough. If you couldn't name your partner's top three values, and they can't name your top three values, that's proof to you that love is not enough. What is it that your partner would never let you sacrifice? What is something that you would want to sacrifice out of love, but your partner would never let you sacrifice? That is a deep value to you. For example, for me, I know that Radhi, one of her biggest values is family. And so whether it's her visiting London, whether it's her wanting to organize vacations for her family,

• 9:42Jay Shetty?

  whether it's her wanting to create experiences and memories, I know that that's the most important thing to her in the world. And I would never want her to give that up, no matter how important something is to me. No matter how important it is. And she knows that for me, my purpose is my biggest priority and my biggest value. And no matter how important something is to her, she won't want me to give that up. But love often makes us forget our values. And in love, we want people to forget their values. We want our partner to sacrifice their values to show us they love us. But that doesn't sound like love. It sounds like manipulation. It sounds like control.

• 10:27Jay Shetty?

  But love can often make you think you're doing things that are higher. You almost manipulate yourself into thinking, "Oh, I really love this person because I'm willing to give this up." So love makes you forget your values. It makes you forget your partner's values. And that's why love can't be enough, because after weeks, months, years of putting aside your values, and when you feel misaligned, you wonder, "Why did I ever do that? Why did I give that up? That was so important to me. That was such a priority to me. How did I let that just go? How did I let that just fade? How did I let that just be?"

• 11:06Jay Shetty?

  So ask yourself, are you getting to prioritize your values? Does your partner prioritize your values? Do you even know what your values are? Are you aware of how they stack? I think a lot of us deprioritize our values because we don't know them. And a lot of us struggle in love because we're hoping that love will make up for the lack of knowledge we have and the lack of awareness we have. This second one is probably the most common one, but it's the most avoidable because of love. Love makes you forget patterns of behavior.

• 11:50Jay Shetty?

  Sometimes the wrong people will say the right things. Sometimes the right people will say the wrong things. Trust patterns, not what people say. So many of us, let me just say that all again. Sometimes the wrong people will say the right things. Sometimes the right people will say the wrong things. Trust patterns, not what people say. How many times has love made you forego what you see? You see someone make a mistake after mistake after mistake and you go, "Oh, but they love me." See, it's not even that you love them, you go, "But I know they love me. I know underneath all of that, they love me." They've convinced you they love you even though they don't act that way.

• 12:33Jay Shetty?

  And we've convinced ourselves that they love us even though they don't behave that way. How many times have you seen sign after sign after sign that everyone can see, you can see it too, but you gloss over it with love? Right? You just wipe over it with love and you say, "No, no, no, but we love each other. It's okay, we love each other." Right? And you keep doing that until that cloth that you're wiping it gets smaller and smaller and smaller. And now you can't wipe anything with it. And again, it's apparent to you that love is not enough. Focus on behaviors, actions, and check those behaviors and actions. By the way, sometimes people don't know what actions and behaviors you count as love.

• 13:18Jay Shetty?

  And they may not know which ones you count as love. Ask them, "How do you show love? When do you show love? And here's how I show love, and here's when I show love. This is what it looks like." That communication to match those patterns with what the person says. And that's why I use the word patterns, because people are patterns. We're all patterns. Right? There's very few people that are not repeating patterns. We repeat communication styles, we repeat how we deal with conflict, we repeat how we deal with stress and anger. Those things are repeated again and again and again. Love makes you forget patterns of behavior.

• 14:03Jay Shetty?

  It makes you focus on what that person says, what you may feel around them, but not what that person does. It's time to start focusing on actual effort, on actual action. If you're constantly justifying someone's behaviors to make sense of them. Sometimes, by the way, it's fair to do that, right? No one's perfect. No one's going to tick all your boxes. But you have to ask yourself, how much are you justifying? How much are you filling in the blanks? Versus how much are you truly understanding the person being a human and having limitations? Right? Sometimes we can just have godly expectations of someone.

• 14:45Jay Shetty?

  And it's important to actually say, well, I can't expect godly patterns. But am I just seeing a pattern that's actually negative and repetitive? Then I am positive and momentum-based, moving in the right direction. Love is not enough because it makes you forget emotional maturity. This is what's fascinating about this "love is not enough" statement is that it actually acts as forgetfulness. It's almost like you get amnesia from what really matters because you use love as the cover-up. You use love as the Band-Aid. And love makes you forget someone's level of emotional maturity.

• 15:27Jay Shetty?

  Do you believe this person knows how to engage in emotionally healthy conversations? Do you believe that this person is emotionally mature when it comes to managing their own emotions? So the American Behavioral Clinic's definition is emotional maturity is the ability to understand, manage, and express emotions in a way that promotes personal growth and healthy relationships. That's one of the things that we're really, really looking for. Right, we're really, really looking for that. One of the things I love that I've read from Roger K. Allen is he talks about the stages of emotional maturity.

• 16:11Jay Shetty?

  So he talks about how survival is fear-based living. Security is duty-based living. Success is ego-based living and serenity is love, trust, and I'd like to think peace-based living. So when you're looking at emotional maturity, you're looking at, does your relationship work from a place of survival? Are you constantly breaking up, making up? Are you just trying to survive? Is that the energy that you're carrying in your relationship? Because then love isn't enough. Is it security? Is it duty and safety? Is it because, oh, I feel secure, I'd rather not be alone? Is it success? I was speaking to someone the other day and he said to me, he said, this woman said

• 16:55Jay Shetty?

  to him, "You're a high-value man, that's why I want to be with you." Now, that language has really perpetuated itself into modern-day love speak. And it's really, really interesting to me because when I asked him, "What do you think that person's top value is?", he said, "Power." And that that person has been making dating decisions based on power. So that's success and ego-based living. Now, what does that mean? That level of emotional maturity means even if you love each other, if someone is more powerful, more success-based, more ego-based, that's an easy trade, right? That's an easy way for that person to move on. So love makes us forget that.

• 17:37Jay Shetty?

  Love makes us go, "Oh, no, but they love us like we are that person for them," rather than actually being clear and going, "Okay, well, wait a minute. Does this person bring peace into my life?" And I think this is often, I'd say peace is one of the most underrated relationship benefits. I think we think of things like chemistry, this spark, we think of pleasure. Again, I'm not saying any of those things are not good to think about, but the healthiest, longest-lasting relationships are based on peace, right? It's peace that keeps relationships together.

• 18:10Jay Shetty?

  Pleasure may start relationships, peace continues relationships. I saw a quote the other day that said, "If your home is a place of peace, you've broken the cycle." I saw on Instagram, I took a screenshot, sent it to Radi, and I just said, "This is what we're building, right? This is what we're working on. We want our home to be a place of peace." Notice, I didn't say, "This is what we've done, we've achieved it." It's what we're working on, it's what we're building. It's what we're creating together, it's what we're founding together. So don't let love overshadow a lack of emotional maturity.

• 18:50Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. I know how important every hire is for a business. If you need to make the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed sponsored jobs helps find quality candidates when you need them most. You can reach who you need based on whatever criteria you're looking for, like skills, certifications, or location. In fact, people are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast.

• 19:33Jay Shetty?

  That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. Home should be a place that feels like a sanctuary, a space that truly reflects who you are, but it can be challenging to balance style, budget, and endless options. I was looking to create a dedicated calm space for my morning meditation and reading, but I was struggling to find pieces that felt grounding but could also stand up to daily use. I went on Wayfair and found a beautiful, solid wood accent chair and a bookshelf. Now that corner is my favorite place to anchor my day. The quality is incredible, it's built to last, and it completely shifted the energy of the room.

• 20:15Jay Shetty?

  Plus, you can shop with Wayfair Verified, where product specialists carefully vet items Quality and functionality, so you can shop with more confidence. And if putting it all together sounds like a headache, Wayfair can handle delivery, installation and assembly. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are,

• 20:59Jay Shetty?

  and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

• 21:21Jay Shetty?

  The next is, love makes you forget their trauma and how they treat you. When you love someone, you automatically feel a false sense of compassion towards them. What I mean by this is, you see the pain they've been through, which is by the way, an important part, but you sometimes negate how that pain creates pain for you. Now, loving someone means to understand their pain. Loving someone means to recognize their pain. And loving someone means to accept that people have pain. But loving someone doesn't mean that that person's pain causes you pain and you ignore that pain just because you know where it's come from. Knowing where it's come from and where it originates from is healthy and important,

• 22:05Jay Shetty?

  and it's a valuable part of being in love. But just because you love someone doesn't mean that you ignore their trauma and how their trauma makes them treat you.

• 22:17Jay Shetty?

  I read this great point from, I think it was collected by the lady alchemist, T H E E lady alchemist. And it said, I just broke things off with my boyfriend a few days ago. We were good, we got along well, had fun together and grew together. But his mother kept interfering. He claimed he loved me, which I do believe was genuine, but he'd never take the actions necessary to solidify or protect our relationship. I stuck around for three months while he tried to convince his mother into letting him continue dating me. Just because you love someone, the feeling, it doesn't mean things will always work. I ended up breaking up with him. I want an adult relationship and not a man afraid of his mother at 24 years old.

• 23:01Jay Shetty?

  Now, that's someone being honest about what they want and what they're looking for and what's important to them. And as Stephen Chbosky says, we accept the love we think we deserve. And I think a lot of that, let me just say that again. Stephen Chbosky said, we accept the love we think we deserve. And often, the reason why we let someone love us in their trauma, in their pain, is because there's a familiarity we have with it. Maybe we weren't the top priority to a parent and now that person is mirroring it and it actually feels familiar. Maybe a parent loved us, but made us feel guilty or shameful. And now this person does that and it feels familiar.

• 23:46Jay Shetty?

  Often, the way someone loves us through trauma is familiar to the trauma we've been through. And we keep accepting that. But remember that Stephen Chbosky said, we accept the love we think we deserve. And what we have to do is ask ourselves, what type of life do we want? What type of love do we want? It's not going to be perfect. And we're probably going to have to understand that the version we want probably doesn't even exist because it's almost like the God love that we're looking for. And what I mean by that is this perfect, universal, godly type of love that we all crave. We all have that God-shaped hole in our heart that we're trying to fill. And we're not going to get that. But are we getting a love that's healthy?

• 24:31Jay Shetty?

  Are we creating a love that's healthy with that individual? So it's really important to talk about trauma, to understand that person's trauma. And don't let love just overshadow that. The next one is love versus support.

• 24:47Jay Shetty?

  What we really want is support. Love isn't enough, you need support. You want a partnership, not just a relationship. I was speaking to a friend the other day and he was talking about how he finds himself doing everything in a relationship. Now, whenever anyone says that to me, my first version is to be skeptical and thoughtful about it. And say, look, when we look at the scorecard of love, it's great not to have a scorecard, but we all keep one. And often what we do is we only look at the financial. We think who provides financially. But I like people to extend their scorecard of love to physical, financial, emotional, mental and spiritual. Physically, who takes care of the relationship?

• 25:31Jay Shetty?

  Who's taking care of the food, the cleaning, the groceries, the cooking? These are all important parts of a relationship. Don't forget that when you're coming up with your scorecard. The second is, who's financially taking care of the relationship? Who's paying the bills, the rent, the mortgage? Who's paying for all the stuff? Who's paying for when things go wrong? Who's paying for health insurance, whatever else it may be? The third is, who's mentally leading the relationship? This is a lot more subtle, but we often forget it. It's almost like who's really mentally stable in difficult times? Who's really making sure that you're both feeling secure and stable in the relationship? Who's really making sure that you're both being level-headed

• 26:16Jay Shetty?

  about your decision-making? Then, who's emotionally leading the relationship? Who has more mood swings? And who's actually making sure that you're happy? Who's the one who's carrying the relationship emotionally? And finally, spiritually, who's the one guiding you both spiritually? If that's a value for you. So when you look at the scorecard across all five areas, you start to realize you may not be in the lead. But if you realize that you are the one doing four out of five, or three out of four, then of course there is an imbalance. And obviously, we use love again. We go, oh, they're busy, they're fine. But let's really think about that. Are we using love as a way of covering up what we deserve? There's one more I wanted to share with you, which is,

• 27:01Jay Shetty?

  love makes you forget the importance of trust.

• 27:06Jay Shetty?

  There's a quote that I love that says, "Trust is more valuable than love because you can't love someone you don't trust." Right? You can trust someone you don't love. Like you trust someone that you work with and you may not love them, but you can't love someone you don't trust. And that's why trust is more valuable than love, because you can't. And often what we realize is you're like, "I love them, but I don't trust them. I want to check their phone all the time." "I love them, but I don't trust them. I'm wondering where they are at night." "I love them, but I don't trust them." And of course, we have to ask ourselves, "Do we not trust them because of our own trauma? Or do we not trust them because of their behavior?" That's the next question. Right? The next question isn't to force someone into being trustworthy.

• 27:50Jay Shetty?

  It's to say, "Wait a minute, is it my own conditioning that's holding me back? Or is it the way they behave?" Now, if it's my own conditioning, let me work on that. Let me build up my attachment styles. Let me become healthier with myself. But if it's their behavior, let me not let that lead me to a relationship I don't want. I hope this relationship helps you understand that love is beautiful, it's powerful, it's necessary, but there's more to it. And often when we keep asking ourselves, "Do they love me? Do I love them?" We're not asking the right questions. The real question is, "Do I trust them? Do they support me? Do I care about them? Are they there for me?

• 28:35Jay Shetty?

  Do their patterns show up in the way that I would want someone that I love? Or are they just relying on what they say?" Thank you so much for listening. Make sure you leave a review, pass this on to a friend. I can't wait to see you again on the next episode. Thank you so much for listening. And I hope you enjoyed your walk, your gym session, cooking, walking, your dog, driving, whatever you're doing right now, I appreciate you. And remember, I'm forever in your corner and I'm always rooting for you. Thank you. If you loved this episode, you'll love my interview with Dr. Gabor Maté on understanding your trauma and how to heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick, does it? It grows where it's soft and green and vulnerable.

• 29:24Speaker 02

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