My friend shared his words with me and I couldn't keep them to myself....I hope this message resonates with you diamonds as it did with me 💜💜💜
We talk about vulnerability in relationships a lot. We call it courage. We call it intimacy. We call it growth.
Yet few truly understand what vulnerability requires or what it exposes.
Let me be clear: vulnerability is not weakness. It is not oversharing. It is not self-abandonment.
Vulnerability is the courage to speak your truth from a grounded place, to reveal your heart and mind - even when doing so carries risk, even with someone you trust.
Here’s the truth many miss: vulnerability doesn’t just deepen connection.
It tests the emotional capacity of the person receiving it.
When vulnerability is met with judgment or criticism, the test is active and the future of the relationship is quietly defined.
Many of us have opened ourselves to someone we love, shared a fear, a doubt, a tender part of ourselves… only to hear:
“You’re insecure.” “You’re too much.”
“You’re this, you're that.”
Those words can land in two ways: As an invitation to understanding - seeing the triggers, the history, the humanity in another.
Or as a dismissal - disguised as insight, but in truth a refusal to hold, witness, or care.
Being a mature partner and person means recognizing that insecurity is not identity. It is a signal:
A signal that something has been triggered.
A signal that care, sensitivity, reassurance, or attunement may be needed.
An unhealthy response turns that signal into a label - a label that shrinks you, diminishes your truth, and closes the door to connection.
Sharing is not easy. We don’t reveal our inner worlds to just anyone.
We choose carefully who we trust with our past wounds, our fears, our triggers.
We hope they will hold what we reveal, preserve it, protect it - not use it against us.
When a partner weaponizes our vulnerabilities, just because we allowed them to see us - even subtly, it’s not just disappointing.
It’s unsettling.
It erodes emotional safety.
Once trust is broken, honesty becomes heavy to share.
Intimacy starts to feel transactional.
Every word from then carries risk: risk of judgment, measurement, weaponization.
In mature, healthy relationships, vulnerability is met with care, not critique.
Insecurities are explored together - not returned as labels, blunt statements of flaws, or markers of incapacity.
Honesty should strengthen the bond. And it can sound hurtful at times. But care, yes needs to worth together with honesty.
Care works with the insecurities, nurtures them, helps them grow not punish them. That’s love. That’s partnership. That’s what it truly means to care.
When vulnerability is mishandled. Openness feels unsafe.
Truth becomes filtered.
Words are rationed.
Emotional presence is replaced with politeness.
Not because love died - but because safety did.
Over time, a quiet, permanent shift occurs.
It is not anger.
It is not resentment.
It is withdrawal - the self stepping back, choosing silence over exposure.
The most dangerous moment in intimacy is not conflict. It is the moment one partner decides it is safer to stay silent about who they are than to be fully seen. Once honesty becomes ammunition, it stops being offered.
Note: I said destructive, not constructive. Vulnerability can be met with discomfort but there’s a difference between care and critique:
- Constructive guidance says: “Here’s a way to improve. Here’s something to consider.”
- Destructive labeling says: “You are this or that.” Nothing else, nothing more.
When we fail to nurture the vulnerability of those around us, withdrawal inevitably follows. Emotional withdrawal is not cruelty. It is self-preservation.
If you choose to be vulnerable, remember:
Share openly. But do not allow others to reduce you to your insecurities.
Again, this is not defensiveness - it is self-respect. Zithande #LoveYourself
The measure of a relationship is how imperfection is handled.
Handle each other’s flaws delicately.
Pause before responding and ask yourself these first
- Does your honesty bring clarity or confusion?
- Does it foster safety or spark judgment?
- Does it encourage more openness or fear of revealing their heart again?
Your answers will speak louder than any words ever could.
Love (relationships, friendships, kinship) don’t end when people stop caring.
It ends when they stop feeling emotionally safe enough to be vulnerable.
Vulnerability is a gift, not a burden.
It deserves protection, not punishment.
Anyone who cannot hold it with care will inevitably lose access - not to love itself, but to the intimacy it creates.
Secure connection is quiet, grounded, mutual.
It is where real love matures and stays.
True vulnerability builds safety, security - not silence or selectiveness.
By Delani Makhalima
