If you're giving love and not receiving it, you're not in the

Hear the counsel of Patti Stanger, who speaks with clarity about the balance of human bonds: “If you’re giving love and not receiving it, you’re not in the right relationship. If you’re receiving it and not giving it then you are taking advantage of the other person.” In this wisdom, the eternal law of reciprocity is revealed—that love is not a one-sided current, but a river that must flow in both directions, lest it dry to dust or flood into ruin.

To give love and not receive it is to pour one’s soul into a vessel that will not return its water. Such a bond is barren, for no heart can live forever on sacrifice alone. The ancients knew this truth, for even the earth that yields fruit must be replenished by rain. Without mutual exchange, devotion becomes a chain, and what once was sweet becomes bitter.

To receive love and not give it is far more perilous still, for it is to walk the path of selfishness, feeding on another’s devotion without offering the nourishment of one’s own. This is not love but exploitation, and it withers the giver even as it corrupts the taker. In this, Stanger names the danger: that to enjoy the gift without returning it is to take advantage, to dishonor the sacred covenant between two souls.

The origin of this saying lies in the eternal truth of relationships: they are covenants of balance. As fire needs both heat and fuel, as music needs both sound and silence, so love requires both giving and receiving. One without the other is incomplete, an echo without voice, a flame without breath. It is the exchange, the mutual rising and falling, that creates harmony.

Thus let the generations learn: seek no bond where your love is wasted, and do not remain where your heart is unreturned. But also, guard yourself from greed, giving only to take, for such bonds crumble into dust. True relationship is found in balance, where both souls give and both receive, and in that balance they find not loss, but abundance.