The people who never push back on you aren't agreeing. They're just not telling you what they think.
Real love, in any form, includes the willingness to say when you think someone is wrong. Not to win. Because you actually care about the outcome for them. Because you're taking their choices seriously enough to engage with them instead of just nodding along.
We treat conflict avoidance as kindness. It usually isn't. The friend who always validates you isn't necessarily more loving than the one who tells you hard truths. They might just care less about the cost of the conversation. Or more gently, they might be protecting their own comfort more than yours.
I've learned more from disagreements with people I love than from almost anything else. Not because conflict is inherently useful, but because the people who know you well disagree with you usefully. They can see where your blind spots are. They know which parts of your reasoning are genuine and which are self-serving. A stranger can argue with your position. Someone who loves you can argue with you.
The condition is that the disagreement has to be honest. Not strategic. Not trying to win. The goal is to actually figure out what's true or right, even if the answer is uncomfortable for someone in the room.
Relationships that can't survive disagreement are more fragile than they look. The ones that can are built on something real: the assumption that you can tell each other the truth and still choose each other afterward.
That's not a low bar. It's the only bar worth clearing.