When Love Starts to Look Like Performance!

You know what stopped me in my tracks the other day? A simple sentence:

"They need to separate love from performance."

That line opened something in me. Like it reached down to the very root of the version of marriage I had tried to keep alive for years.

I didn’t even know I was performing.

All I knew was: I wanted a beautiful family. A soft life. Stability. Peace. Legacy.

And because I wanted those things so badly, I worked for them. I sacrificed for them. I carried them. I thought that’s what love looked like.

I showed up in every way I could. I stayed when I wanted to run. I supported when I wanted to scream. I made do when there wasn’t enough. I believed in us, even when everything around us said we were falling apart.

But at some point…it stopped feeling like love. And started feeling like labor.

Because it was always: keep the bills paid. Keep the children fed. Keep the house clean. Keep the marriage afloat. Keep the image intact. Keep smiling. Keep praying. Keep forgiving. Keep finding a way.

And when you grow up in trauma, in survival, in chaos, love becomes a role you play. Not a truth you rest in.

You think: if I do everything right, I’ll finally feel safe. If I love hard, maybe love will be enough. If I hold it all together, no one will see it’s falling apart.

But love was never meant to be performance-based.

Love doesn’t say, “I see your effort, now you can be worthy.” It says, “You are worthy. Period.”

But when you’ve spent your life equating your value to how well you hold it down, you don’t even notice that love has started to feel like pressure.

And that’s what makes trauma-informed marriage counseling so necessary.

Because most couples aren’t fighting about money. They’re fighting about fear.

Fear of not being enough. Fear of being too much. Fear of failing. Fear of being left.

So when I think about the woman who keeps pushing her husband to make more because she’s scared they’ll lose everything, I get it. And when I think about the man who starts stealing to meet that pressure, I see the desperation. #Us

It’s all trauma. Just wearing different clothes.

They don’t need judgment. They need truth. They need healing. They need someone to say:

"You are allowed to want good things without destroying yourself to get them."

They need to know that they can rebuild their lives on partnership, not pressure.

Because love should feel like home. Not like hustle.

Let me break this down…

“They need to separate love from performance.”

That one line hits different because it names something so many of us carry but never put words to. Especially women like me (and you even) who gave everything to hold a family together.

Here’s why it stands out:

1. Because too many of us were taught to prove our love thru performance.

Cook the meals. Keep the house. Raise the kids. Show up for everything. Sacrifice your own dreams. Say yes when you really want to say no.

Raise the kids like it’s your divine assignment.
Be present for everything.
Sacrifice your own dreams.
Say yes when you’re exhausted and really want to say no.

Not just once.
Every day.
Without question.

You don’t just love your family; you labor for them.
You perform.
You produce.
You pour.

Because somewhere along the line, you were taught that love is what you do, not who you are.

And when something slips thru the cracks; when the laundry piles up,
when the kids eat cereal for dinner, when you miss a deadline,
when you forget to show up for someone else because you’re drowning yourself…

You don’t just wonder if you’re slipping.

You start to question if you’re enough.
If you’re still lovable.
If you’ve failed at being the “good woman” you thought you were to be.

And I know this one personally.
Because I did it all.
I wore every hat, kept every wheel spinning, held the whole house together.
And even then...
I found myself wondering if it was enough.
Not because anyone told me it wasn’t,
but because the performance lens I was looking thru said, “If you drop one ball, you drop your worth.”

That’s not love.
That’s labor disguised as love.
That’s survival dressed up as sacrifice.

And I now know the difference.

2. Because many marriages become performance-based without even realizing it.

One partner becomes the “earner.”
The other becomes the “nurturer.”
And both start measuring their worth by how well they keep the roles going.

Whew. That hit different when I really looked at my own life.

For 20 years, I was the nurturer. The homemaker. The teacher. The mother. The builder. The emotional anchor.

I didn’t clock in or out.
There was no paycheck to validate the work I did.
But I kept performing.
Performing peace. Performing faith. Performing structure.

And even when things were crumbling financially, I held the image together.
Because somewhere along the way, I believed that if I was good at this role, if I loved hard enough, gave enough, managed enough…then we would be okay.
That I would be okay.

Because my worth was wrapped up in how well I could nurture, fix, maintain.
Even if it meant silently suffering.
Even if it meant carrying the weight of two people while being the one who made sure the home, the children, and the vision kept going.

That was my performance.

But what about him?

He was the “earner.”
So every time he lost a job or income shifted, he felt that loss not just as a man but as a provider.

His worth was tied to how much he brought in.
And mine was tied to how much I held things together.

You see the problem, right?

We weren’t being partners; we were being performers.

Playing roles we didn’t even fully sign up for, but couldn’t seem to break free from.
Because we both started believing that if we couldn’t keep those roles going…we had failed.

But the truth?

When love becomes performance, the soul begins to wither.
Because no one was created to earn their worth.
We are already worthy.

And love was never meant to be a role you play.
It’s a truth you live.

When love becomes performance, people start breaking down quietly while still looking functional on the outside.

3. Because trauma teaches us that love has to be earned.

If you were raised in survival mode...
If your childhood was filled with chaos, inconsistency, abuse, or the constant pressure to perform just to stay safe...
If you learned early that being “good” meant being quiet, being helpful, being what someone else needed...

Then you were trained to believe that love comes after performance.
After you act right.
After you fix everything.
After you hold it all together.
After you prove you’re worth staying for.

So when you grow up and get married, that trauma template doesn’t just disappear.
You recreate it without even realizing it.
You think you’re loving, building, doing what’s right.
But really? You’re still surviving.

And now love isn’t something you receive.
It becomes something you feel like you have to earn.
Over and over again.

Until one day…you’re exhausted.
Not because you stopped loving,
but because you never felt safe enough to just be loved.

So when I got married, I didn’t realize I was still operating from that trauma template.
I thought I was building a home, building a family, being a godly wife.
But underneath that, I was performing.

Performing motherhood.
Performing partnership.
Performing peace.
Even performing strength.

Because deep down I believed: if I love well enough, serve well enough, sacrifice enough…then everything will all work out especially for those love Christ and are of the called, right?

Then maybe I’ll be safe.
Maybe I’ll continue to be loved the way I love being loved.

I wasn’t trying to manipulate. I was just surviving.
Doing what trauma taught me to do.

And I didn’t know how to stop until the curtain closed on the performance and everything behind the scenes collapsed.

This is why trauma-informed counseling is critical.
Not just for helping couples navigate money, or communication, or sex…
But for helping them separate survival patterns from sacred partnership.

Because if you’re performing, you’re not partnering.
If you’re hustling for love, you’re not resting in it.
And if you’re constantly proving your worth, you’re not actually being loved; you’re being evaluated.

There’s a moment I haven’t talked about much.

Not just the loss. Not just the downfall. Not even the part where I was put out of a hotel with my kids and didn’t have anywhere else to go.

It was the moment right after.

After the last bag was packed. After I had sent out the SOS texts to friends…finally telling the truth, finally admitting how bad things had gotten. They were shocked. Shook, even. And so was I.

But not only for the reasons you’d expect.

Because beneath all the chaos and uncertainty, something else was rising in me.

Relief.

There was a strange breath of peace. And for a second, I felt something like happiness.

Not because of what was happening, but because of what was ending.

Something in me was…glad.

Glad to not have to pretend anymore. Glad the pressure to perform was breaking. Glad to be done with the show.

Because that’s what it had become.

A show.

Lights. Camera. Action. On cue.

Smile. Serve. Stay together. Push through. Post the picture.

Every day, for years, I had been performing and didn’t even know it.

Trying to keep up with the image of a stable family.
A faith-filled loving marriage.

A stay-at-home mom life that looked whole from the outside while so much inside was fractured.
A woman of leisure.
A Proverbs 31 narrative that didn’t match the reality behind our front door.

We were working and trying to model something.
Trying to keep up with what we thought was the dream.

He worked. I stayed home. I homeschooled. We served. We smiled in pictures. We posted scriptures and moments of faith.

But behind the curtain, the script was falling apart. The stage was crumbling. The lights were flickering. The mic was breaking.

It was like performing the same Broadway play over and over, in different cities every single week. Two or three shows a day. No understudy. No break. No room for error.

And the audience? They clapped. They stood. They cheered. Because they couldn’t see what was happening behind the curtains and in between the scenes.

They couldn’t see that I was tired. They didn’t know I was disappearing.

They didn’t know I almost didn’t know who I was anymore.

They couldn’t see that I was quietly falling apart while trying to hold everything together.

And then it ended.

The final curtain fell. The show was finally over.

There were no more lines to remember. No more lights to adjust. No more smiling thru tears and calling it “faith.”

And that’s when I felt something shift inside me.

I could actually breathe…again.

Not because everything was fine. But because I no longer had to pretend that it was.

I didn’t want to do that anymore.

I didn’t want to perform. I didn’t want to strive. I didn’t want to smile thru exhaustion just to make other people comfortable with my life choices.

I wanted to live.

Not survive. Not pose. Not endure.

Live.

Really live.

It didn’t come with applause. It didn’t come with recognition. It came with stillness. With surrender. With truth.

And I know now, more than ever, that when a woman stops performing, the real life she was meant to live finally begins. 😉 

What about you, sis?
Are you still performing?
Are you exhausted from holding it together?
Are you carrying the weight of a life you never actually chose, just one you were expected to maintain?

If you’re done pretending…If you’re ready to breathe again…

Then you’re right on time.

Because you’re not late.
You’re not behind.
You’re not broken.
You’re just done performing.

And now? Now you get to live.

Let’s Talk…For Real
If you need help unpacking what this means for you, where to go from here, how to stop performing, how to start healing, then let’s talk.

My 1:1 sessions are open.
For the woman of faith who’s ready to choose herself without guilt, Book your 1:1 Session with Me and let’s take off the costume, lay down the script, and step into the real story that’s yours.

Always Much Love,

Octavia E. Vance (OEV) 💋
Your Favorite Sexologist and Navigator of Love, Leisure & Pleasure

P.S. I’ve been transparent about my separation journey. As I take even bigger steps forward, I’ll be sharing more about what’s really going on now, what’s next and how you can be a part of it. This will only be shared inside the premium space in a private group setting. So if you haven’t already, go premium now to access exclusive content just between you and me.