Now before all you crazy on me, I’m not trying to bash Stefan or anything it’s just something that I noticed throughout the 4 season of the series so bare with me till the end then you can argue as much as you want.

So let’s just look back to 1864, when Stefan & Damon meet Katherine for the first time, both boys feel for instantly and both had a relationship with her, it’s wasn’t that long that she showed/told what she really is a vampire, and it seemed like both boys have accepted for what/who she really is until their father informed them that he and rest of the council are hunting down Bampira and told them that Bampira are pure evil, have no humanity what so ever that we start to see that Stefan started to tanong his pag-ibig for Katherine and whether her does pag-ibig this girl which lead him to basically telling/indicating that she was in fact vampire because it didn’t feel right to pag-ibig someone so evil [which let’s face it she was kind of was but she never really showed her evil side to Stefan not fully], then we go to see that both brothers had Katherine’s blood in their system when their dad killed them so both of them were in transition, but as we saw/watched Stefan didn’t drink from Katherine willingly she had to compel him to dink from her because she knew that his pag-ibig wasn’t enough to give up everything, unlike Damon who drunk from her willingly because his pag-ibig was enough to give everything about himself for the woman that he loves. Unlike Stefan, Damon was able to pag-ibig and accept Katherine for what/who she is at her best & worst, Stefan on the other hand can only pag-ibig part of her

We come to S1, we can in begging Damon at his worst, Stefan being still the same person couldn’t pag-ibig or accept his own brother at his worst and tried to kill him in the name of helping/saving people and doing the right thing. But as we saw/watched later on in S1 Stefan himself had a darker side than his brother, unlike Stefan, Damon actually tried to help him control his dark side he accepted him for what/who he is, yet Stefan himself couldn’t accept himself and tried to kill himself.

Now we come to S4, Elena became a vampire [and even though a lot of people might argue that she changed she didn’t, she’s just madami magnified of herself], we saw/watched Elena’s fear of Stefan not loving her that’s why she didn’t tell him about throwing up the animal blood because she knew deep down that he won’t be able to accept her for what/who she really is, and that was confirmed in 3x05 when Damon asked Stefan why does he want the cure, “do you wanna cure her because she’s a vampire and she’s not cutout to be? Or because you CAN’T pag-ibig HER if she’s one?” which Stefan responded sa pamamagitan ng “she’s NOT to be this person, I DON’T WANT her to be”
I think this conclude that Stefan’s pag-ibig is conditional, not only for Elena or his brother or Katherine but even for HIMSELF he likes/loves himself with limits/conditions that’s why he couldn’t love/accept Elena/Damon/Katherine for their true selves because he can’t accept himself 100% and until he does his pag-ibig for the people he cares about will never be enough