People Can Only Meet You Where They Are

People can only meet you where they are mentally and emotionally—not where you want them to be, not where you think they should be, but where they actually are. That single sentence, repeated throughout this episode of Jillian on Love, is the central argument. Host Jillian uses it to reframe why we take rejection so personally, why we stay in relationships that aren't working, and why we keep choosing partners who cannot give us what we need.

The framework: seeing the reality of someone's capacity

The episode opens with a reader's question that serves as the clearest illustration of the framework. A woman started dating a man who was "lovely" and "very persistent," but he had a dependency on drugs and alcohol. He asked her to be his girlfriend, and a week later entered rehab. Then he cut off all contact. She was devastated, spiraling into childhood abandonment wounds, asking what she did wrong.

Jillian's response is direct: "You can't make this about you." The man is in a life-or-death situation. He cannot be in a relationship right now, regardless of how loving or perfect she is for him. "He did the best he could with the emotional resources that he had," Jillian says. "Let him go knowing he is making the only choice, literally the only choice that he is able to make."