Love Is a Verb, Trust Is Earned, and Sorry Isn’t a Magic Word

Because what people do matters just as much as what they say.

There comes a point in life when you realise that some of the most important things about relationships are also the simplest.

Love requires action. Trust needs consistency. And an apology? Well, an apology requires change.

Three little truths that sound perfectly obvious when you read them.

And yet, how many of us have spent years accepting beautiful words accompanied by very little evidence? How many times have we excused behavior because we understood the reasons behind it? How often have we accepted an apology, only to find ourselves having exactly the same conversation six months later?

I suspect most of us have been there. And before anyone starts sharpening their pitchforks, this isn’t about expecting perfection from the people in our lives. Goodness knows, none of us could survive that particular standard.

It’s about something far more ordinary. It’s about showing up. It’s about meaning what we say. And it’s about recognising that the people we love deserve more than our good intentions.

1. Love Requires Action

It’s lovely to hear “I love you”. I’d like to feel it, too.

I love a good declaration of affection.

Who doesn’t?

There’s something wonderful about hearing that you’re loved, appreciated, missed or thought about.

But here’s the thing.

Love isn’t just something we say. It’s something we make other people feel. And often, it’s the smallest gestures that speak the loudest. It’s someone remembering that you’ve had a difficult day and asking how you’re doing. It’s making a cup of tea without being asked. It’s noticing that someone’s overwhelmed and quietly taking something off their plate. It’s remembering something important to them, even when it isn’t particularly important to you. It’s listening, properly listening, instead of waiting for your turn to speak.

Sometimes it’s a packed lunch left in the fridge, a message saying “Did you get home safely?” or someone remembering how you take your coffee.

Nothing particularly glamorous. No violins. No grand romantic gestures. No dramatic declarations in the pouring rain.

Although, frankly, if someone wants to turn up with flowers and a weekend in Italy, I’m not going to complain.

But the everyday stuff?

That’s where love lives. And this doesn’t apply only to romantic relationships.

Think about friendships. The friend who checks in when you’ve gone quiet. The family member who offers help without making you feel like an inconvenience. The person who celebrates your achievements without turning the conversation back to themselves.

Those are expressions of love, too.

Of course, people show affection differently. Some are naturally demonstrative, others more reserved. Some express love through words, others through practical help, physical affection or simply being present. And sometimes people genuinely care but aren’t particularly good at showing it.

That’s worth understanding. But understanding someone shouldn’t mean permanently ignoring your own emotional needs.

You can appreciate someone’s intentions and still need something different from their actions.

Because love shouldn’t leave us constantly wondering whether it exists. We should be able to feel it.

Not every minute of every day, obviously. We’re human. We get tired, distracted, stressed and occasionally spectacularly grumpy. But over time, love should have a recognizable presence in our lives.

Not just in what people promise. In what they actually do.

2. Trust Needs Consistency

Trust is built in all the little moments when you do what you said you would.

Trust is a funny old thing. We often think of it as something enormous.

A great declaration of loyalty. A promise never to betray someone. A belief that another person would never deliberately hurt us.

But I’ve come to think that trust is built in much smaller moments. It’s the phone call someone said they’d make. The commitment they remembered. The confidence they kept. The promise they honoured, even when it was inconvenient. It’s knowing that someone’s words and actions generally belong in the same sentence. And perhaps most importantly, it’s knowing that you don’t have to keep checking.

You don’t have to remind them seventeen times. You don’t have to wonder whether they meant what they said. You don’t have to become a detective, a project manager and a personal assistant just to make sure something happens.

Because, quite frankly, who has the energy?

Trust grows when people are reliable. Not perfectly reliable. Just consistently enough that you feel safe believing them. And there’s something deeply comforting about that.

Especially as we get older.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve reached an age where peace has become considerably more attractive than excitement disguised as uncertainty. I no longer find unpredictability particularly romantic. I’d much rather have someone who says they’ll be there at six and actually arrives at six. Or at least sends a message explaining why they’re running late.

Revolutionary stuff, I know.

But there’s another side to consistency that we don’t always talk about.

Being trustworthy also means being honest about what we can realistically give. Sometimes life gets in the way. Plans change. Circumstances shift. We overestimate our energy, our time or our ability to deliver.

That doesn’t automatically make someone unreliable.

What matters is how they handle it. Do they communicate? Do they take responsibility? Do they acknowledge the impact on others? Or do they simply expect everyone to adjust, again and again?

Because there’s a difference between someone occasionally letting us down and someone repeatedly teaching us that their promises are optional. And we feel that difference. Even when we try to talk ourselves out of it.

Trust isn’t built by promising the world.

It’s built by being someone whose word means something.

3. An Apology Requires Change

I’ve accepted the apology. I’m still waiting for the change.

Ah, apologies.

Two little words.

“I’m sorry.”

Sometimes they’re exactly what we need to hear. A sincere apology can soften hurt, open a conversation and begin repairing something that matters.

But an apology is a beginning. Not a magic eraser. And certainly not a lifetime subscription to doing exactly the same thing again.

We’ve all experienced those conversations.

Someone hurts us. We explain why. They apologize. We accept. Things improve… for approximately eleven minutes. And then, somehow, we’re back where we started. Same behaviour. Same conversation. Same apology.

At some point, you begin to wonder whether you’re having a relationship or participating in a particularly tedious theatrical production.

The Apology: A Never-Ending Story. Now showing for the seventeenth consecutive season. And here’s where things become complicated.

Because sometimes the person apologizing genuinely means it. They feel bad. They regret hurting us. They might even be deeply ashamed of their behavior. But remorse and change aren’t quite the same thing.

Feeling sorry is an emotion. Making things right requires action. A meaningful apology acknowledges what happened without immediately reaching for an excuse. It recognizes the impact on the other person. It makes room for their feelings. And, wherever possible, it leads to a genuine effort to behave differently.

Not necessarily instant transformation. People don’t change deeply ingrained habits overnight. But there should be movement. An effort. A willingness to recognize the pattern and do something about it. And that brings me to something I think is particularly important.

Forgiveness and reconciliation aren’t the same thing. You can forgive someone without immediately restoring the same level of trust. You can accept an apology and still need time. You can understand why someone behaved as they did without agreeing that the behavior was acceptable. And sometimes, you can genuinely wish someone well while recognising that the relationship, as it stands, isn’t healthy for you.

That’s not cruelty. It’s discernment.

Understanding Someone Doesn’t Mean Abandoning Yourself

This is where I think many of us, particularly those who’ve spent years looking after other people, can get ourselves into a bit of a pickle.

We become very good at understanding. We understand why someone is stressed. Why they’re distant. Why they struggle to communicate. Why they react defensively. Why they forget. Why they disappoint us. And compassion is a wonderful quality.

I wouldn’t want to live in a world without it. But compassion becomes exhausting when it only travels in one direction. When we’re constantly understanding other people’s circumstances but nobody seems particularly interested in understanding ours. When we keep adjusting our expectations because we know someone is struggling and we convince ourselves that asking for consideration would somehow make us unreasonable. And gradually, almost without noticing, we begin accepting less than we need.

Not because we’re weak. But because we care. Because we see the good in people. Because we know life is complicated and nobody gets everything right.

All of which can be true.

But so can this:

Someone can be a good person and still be unable to give you the relationship you need.

That’s a difficult truth.

Because it doesn’t give us a villain. There’s nobody to blame, no dramatic confrontation required, no need to declare that someone is a terrible human being. Sometimes two people simply have different capacities, priorities or ways of relating. And recognising that doesn’t mean the affection wasn’t real. It means affection alone isn’t always enough.

And What About the Promises We Make to Ourselves?

Here’s a thought.

What if these three principles apply just as much to the relationship we have with ourselves?

We talk a great deal about self-love. We buy the journals, light the candles, run the baths and occasionally convince ourselves that a new skincare routine will sort out our entire existence. And don’t get me wrong. I’m very much in favor of a beautiful candle and an unnecessarily luxurious bath product.

But self-love also requires action. It means taking our own needs seriously. Resting when we’re exhausted. Setting boundaries, even when it feels uncomfortable. Making decisions that support the life we say we want. And sometimes doing the difficult thing rather than the familiar thing.

Then there’s self-trust.

How often do we promise ourselves we’ll make a change? We’ll start prioritizing our wellbeing; stop saying yes when we mean no; we’ll finally pursue that dream; make time for the things that bring us joy.

And then life happens. Someone needs something. Work gets busy.

We tell ourselves we’ll start next Monday. Or next month. Or when everything settles down.

Except, as I’ve discovered, life has absolutely no intention of settling down just because we’ve asked nicely. And every time we abandon something important to us, we risk teaching ourselves that our own promises don’t matter.

That doesn’t mean we need to become relentlessly disciplined productivity machines. Heaven forbid. It means starting small. Making promises we can realistically keep. And treating those promises with the same respect we’d give a commitment to someone we love.

Because we deserve that consideration, too.

As for apologies?

Perhaps we owe ourselves a few. For the times we ignored our intuition, the occasions we stayed silent when we wanted to speak, the years we spent believing that everyone else’s needs should come before our own.

But rather than turning those regrets into another opportunity to criticise ourselves, perhaps we can use them to make different choices.

Not because we should have known better. But because now we do. And that, surely, is part of growing.

The Quiet Beauty of Relationships That Feel Safe

The older I get, the more I appreciate relationships that don’t require constant interpretation.

People whose affection isn’t a puzzle. Whose kindness doesn’t come with conditions. Whose words generally match their actions. People who can admit when they’ve got something wrong. Who are willing to have uncomfortable conversations.

Who don’t expect perfection from me, either.

Because this works both ways.

We can’t ask other people to demonstrate love, consistency and accountability while refusing to offer those things ourselves. Healthy relationships aren’t built by one person getting everything right.

They’re built by people who care enough to keep trying. To listen. To learn. To repair. To show up for each other in ways that matter. And sometimes, to say, “I hadn’t thought about it that way. I’ll try to do better.” There is something incredibly reassuring about being able to trust that.

No grand performance required. Just two people, whether partners, friends or family, making a genuine effort to treat each other well.

Not every relationship will look the same. Not every season of life allows us to give equally. Sometimes one person needs more support than the other. Sometimes we’re the one struggling. And that’s perfectly normal.

The important thing is that care, respect and consideration remain part of the relationship, even when circumstances aren’t ideal.

Because ultimately, love isn’t measured by how impressive the declarations are. It’s reflected in how we treat each other when nobody’s watching.

Perhaps This Is What Growing Older Teaches Us

I don’t think getting older necessarily makes us less forgiving. If anything, life experience can make us more compassionate.

We’ve made enough mistakes of our own to understand that human beings are gloriously imperfect creatures. We know people carry invisible worries, circumstances can be difficult, sometimes everyone is simply doing the best they can with what they have.

But perhaps we also become a little clearer about what matters. We stop confusing intensity with intimacy. We stop mistaking promises for progress. We stop believing that accepting an apology obliges us to pretend nothing happened. And we begin appreciating something wonderfully uncomplicated.

People who mean what they say. People who care enough to show it. People who take responsibility when they get things wrong.

Not perfect people. Real people. People who make the effort. And perhaps we become a little better at being those people ourselves. Because at the end of the day, relationships aren’t sustained by beautiful words alone. They’re sustained by what happens after the words have been spoken.

Love requires action.

Trust needs consistency.

And an apology requires change.

Not particularly complicated.

But sometimes the simplest truths take us half a lifetime to understand.

And the other half to put into practice.

Life, Love & Other Shenanigans

A Little Something to Think About

Think about the people in your life who make you feel genuinely loved, safe and appreciated.

What do they do differently? Chances are, it isn’t anything particularly extraordinary. It’s the little things. The consistency. The thoughtfulness. The way they show up. And perhaps there’s something we can all take from that.

Be the person whose actions make other people feel what your words promise.

And remember to offer yourself that same kindness.

Let’s Have a Conversation

Do you think actions matter more than words in relationships?

And have you ever reached a point where you realised that accepting an apology didn’t necessarily mean things had changed?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Because sometimes the most interesting conversations begin with the simplest questions.

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