You say love is your value. But when you're making actual decisions—about who gets your time, what you compromise on, whether to stay—something else seems to matter more. That gap between what you claim and what you choose is not weakness. It's information.
Who This Is For (and Who It Is Not)
This is for someone who has noticed that love, as a stated value, does not predict their behavior the way other things do. You might say family matters most, yet you spend your emotional energy on work. You might identify as loving, yet you choose distance over vulnerability when it counts. You're not confused about what love means. You're confused about whether it's actually competing for priority in your life, or whether something else has taken that place without your noticing.
This is also for someone who suspects that love might be too broad to be useful as a value. Love can mean sacrifice, but it can also mean freedom. It can mean commitment, but it can also mean letting go. You sense that saying "love is my value" might be letting you off the hook from being more specific about what you actually want to protect in your relationships.
This is not for you if you are certain about your values and living them. If you know exactly what role love plays in your decisions, and you are making choices that reflect that, then you don't need this. This is also not for you if you're looking for permission to prioritize love above everything else. Schwartz's research—one of the most replicated frameworks in cross-cultural psychology—shows that values exist in a circular structure where some values naturally support each other and others pull in opposite directions. Love (in Schwartz's framework, valued as "benevolence" or care for close others) sits adjacent to values like loyalty and family, but it sits opposite to values like power or achievement. You cannot prioritize everything equally, and knowing which values are actually driving you requires being honest about the trade-offs you are willing to make.
What You Will Discover
Once you identify whether love is truly a core value for you—not whether you believe in love, but whether it actually guides your decisions—several things become clear. You'll see why certain relationships keep requiring the same negotiation, or why you keep making the same choice and feeling guilty about it. You'll understand what you are choosing instead of love in those moments, and whether that choice makes sense given your actual priorities. Some people discover that what they called "love" was actually a value around loyalty or responsibility, which is a different thing entirely. Others find that they do value love deeply, but they have been pairing it with achievement or power in ways that create constant internal conflict. Naming this specific tension is the first step toward resolving it.
You'll also be able to answer questions that felt impossible before: whether a relationship deserves more of your effort, whether a change you are considering is a betrayal of yourself or a betrayal of someone else, why you feel resentful even when you are being kind. These are not abstract questions. They are the decisions that structure your life. Right now, you are making them without a clear map of your own values. With one, the choices get harder to avoid, but they also get clearer.
Common Reasons People Wait
The most common reason someone delays this work is fear that they will discover love is not actually their value, or that it ranks lower than they thought. There is something shameful about that possibility—the fear that you are not as good a person as you believe. But rank is not character. Someone whose core values are centered on autonomy or creativity or growth is not unloving. They are specific about what they can offer, and they are honest about their limits. That is actually more responsible than claiming love is your highest value while consistently choosing other things.
The second hesitation is the opposite: people worry that if they name love as a core value, they will be obligated to sacrifice endlessly, to stay in situations that hurt them, to give up their own needs in service to others. Schwartz's research shows that love does live in tension with values like autonomy and self-direction. But identifying that tension is exactly how you stop being unconscious about which one will win each time you face it. You get to choose. Right now, you might be making that choice on impulse or guilt. Once you see it, you can make it with intention.
The third reason people hesitate is uncertainty about what the assessment will actually show them. You might be wondering if you already know the answer, or whether a tool can tell you something you don't already sense. This is worth taking seriously. If you are confident in your understanding of your own values and how they rank, then verification might not change your life. But most people discover something specific: a value they thought was important turns out not to guide their behavior, or a value they did not expect to be central actually is. The My Values assessment surfaces your values, ranks them, and shows you where you are and are not living them. It is not a personality test. It is a clarity tool.
You came here because something did not add up. The way you make decisions about love does not match the story you tell about yourself. That mismatch is the only thing you need to address.
Is love always a core value?
No. Schwartz's research across 80+ countries shows that while most people value care for others in some form, the priority and expression of that value varies widely. For some people, autonomy or achievement ranks higher than care in guiding their decisions. For others, security or tradition matters more. Love being your stated ideal does not make it your core value—your actual choices do.
Can love be a core value if I also value independence?
Yes, but you will need to be specific about how. Schwartz's circular model shows that benevolence (care for close others) and self-direction (independence) sit in tension, not in alignment. People who hold both often do, but they have to make active choices about when each one takes priority. The clarity comes from knowing which one typically wins, and whether that pattern serves you.
What if I discover love is not my top value?
That is not a failure. It means you can stop organizing your life around an expectation that does not match your actual priorities. You can also stop feeling guilty for making choices that reflect what you genuinely care about. Some of the most functional relationships exist between people who clearly see that they value different things and have aligned around that reality.
How is this different from just knowing myself?
Most people know they value love without knowing how it ranks against other things they value, or without seeing where their actual choices diverge from their stated beliefs. The assessment makes both visible at once. This is harder to ignore than intuition, and harder to rewrite to fit the story you want to tell about yourself.