I didn't doubt our love.
That was the hardest part to admit.
When the doubt arrived, it didn't ask whether I loved him enough—it asked whether I could survive what loving him might require. And those are two very different questions.
The more we talked about moving, the more I felt something tighten inside me. Not fear exactly. Not resistance. Something quieter. Something heavier.
Loss.
It appeared in small thoughts at first. Thoughts I didn't say out loud because I didn't want to give them power.
What would I become without my language around me?
Who would I be without my people close enough to reach?
What parts of myself would I have to put down just to pick up a future?
I told myself these were normal questions. Reasonable ones. But at night, when he slept beside me and the room was finally honest, I wondered something else:
Would loving him cost me myself?
He spoke about starting over with a steadiness I admired. He talked about adaptation, resilience, the way life reshapes you when you let it. I listened, nodded, believed him.
But belief doesn't erase grief.
I imagined leaving behind the version of me that felt grounded—one who knew how to move through the world without explanation. I imagined birthdays missed. Emergencies faced from a distance. A life where everything familiar slowly turned into memory.
None of that meant I loved him less.
It meant I loved myself enough to notice what I was being asked to carry.
One evening, after another quiet conversation about timelines and possibilities, the words escaped me before I could soften them.
"I'm scared," I said.
He looked at me, attentive, open. "Of what?"
"Of disappearing," I said. "Of becoming someone who is always adjusting, always explaining, always the foreign version of myself."
I hated how vulnerable it sounded. I hated that it was true.
He didn't interrupt.
He didn't rush to reassure me.
That was what made it harder.
"I don't want to wake up one day," I continued, "and realize I traded my entire life for a future that still feels temporary."
The room felt fragile after that. Like something important had been placed on the table and we both knew it could break if handled wrong.
He reached for my hand, slow and deliberate.
"I don't want you to lose yourself for me," he said quietly. "I want us to grow, not disappear."
I nodded, but doubt doesn't dissolve just because it's met with kindness.
Because even if he never asked me to sacrifice—
the world might.
That night, I lay awake long after he slept.
I thought about how love stories often celebrate sacrifice as devotion. How leaving everything behind is framed as bravery. But no one talks enough about the quiet aftermath—about the loneliness that comes when courage has nowhere to rest.
I wasn't afraid of work or visas or learning new streets.
I was afraid of becoming rootless.
Afraid that in choosing us, I might lose the parts of me that made choosing possible in the first place.
And yet…
The idea of not choosing him hurt too.
Loving him had already reshaped me in ways I couldn't undo. He was part of my language now. Part of my future thinking. Part of how I understood myself.
There was no version of my life where he simply vanished without leaving a scar.
The doubt didn't mean I wanted to leave.
It meant I needed to be honest about the cost before agreeing to pay it.
So the next morning, I said something I had been avoiding.
"I need time," I told him. "Not to decide about us—but to understand what staying true to myself looks like inside this love."
He smiled softly. Not relieved. Not hurt. Just present.
"Take it," he said. "I'm not in a race with you."
And in that moment, something eased.
Because love that rushes you is not love that lasts.
The cost was still there.
But for the first time, it felt like something we were allowed to measure together—
instead of something I had to carry alone.