Love as the Act of Seeing Another

In his new book, Stephen Grosz reminds us that loving is not simply about what we feel, but about how we see. To love someone is to truly recognise them as separate from ourselves. It requires us to step outside the confines of our own experience, to look beyond our needs, histories, and habits, and to see the other as they are.

That isn’t easy. Many of us carry the weight of past relationships, family patterns, or hurts that quietly dictate how we relate in the present. Love, in Grosz’s view, demands a kind of surrender. Not the erasure of our history, but a willingness to let go of its hold so that we can meet our partner in the here and now.

Think about what happens in long-term relationships. One partner might still feel unseen because the other continues to interpret them through an old lens: “She’s always critical” or “He never really listens.” These are echoes from the past that cloud our vision. Real love asks us to soften those assumptions, to allow ourselves to discover the person in front of us today rather than the version we’ve constructed from yesterday.

To love is to see. And to see is to give up the safety of old certainties, so we can be alive to the unpredictable, changing reality of another human being. That’s the work, and the gift, of intimacy.

I highly recommend his book : Love’s Labour by Stephen Grosz.