Unrequited Love Bitterness.
The moments of unreturned, unrequited love or lust may be tough. They may even feel vulnerable, gut-wrenchingly sad, lonely, confusing and bare. Yet they are a tough reality of togetherness and separateness. And yet all of us keep falling in and out of unrequited all the time. There is not one person in the world who hasn’t felt unrequited love at some point in life.
When our feelings are rejected, or when a partner walks out on us, betrays our trust, or decides to end the relationship, we can be more tough to ourselves than we are to them. We keep blaming ourselves for being stupid in believing (even half-heartedly) that they loved us too. Not only does it make the recovery slower, it also makes us stuck in that feeling. We’re unable to move on because of the immeasurable pain and the pity-parties we throw for ourselves whenever we remember that moment of rejection.
If only the strength of the love that people feel when it is reciprocated could be as intense and obsessive as the love we feel when it is not, then relationships in this day and age would be like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet’s. Unrequited love turns bitter and mean, and sometimes those who come after, pay the price for the hurt done by the one who came before. When you love someone and get hurt, the pain remains; buried deep down. It’s a scar you carry in your heart. Feelings are a powerful yet strange emotion. They can play tricks and destroy you, or sustain you. Either way, feelings are an influential and dominant emotion. It takes days, weeks, months, or years to recover and encounter this emotional love pain. The scar will eventually heal once you find someone of same or better quality than the person that rooted your scar. Or, you will be scarred forever and the next relationship of your life will bear the brunt of it. It depends on what you let the emotions do to you.
Loving someone and that someone not returning the love is severely cruel. It’s like walking around with a black cloud, following you everywhere and anywhere you go. Getting over your unrequited love is even worse than knowing that person’s love is not reciprocated. You have pain to deal with, time getting over it, and you must go through a lot of mixed emotions. You’re basically living with a sorrow heart. Now, I understand why obviously knowing someone likes you, but there’s something getting in the way of dating can be frustrating and hard to get over. You like them, and they like you. Works out perfectly. But, there’s that one tiny obstacle getting in your path. You can definitely surpass this tiny obstacle. Since both parties like each other, and are aware of their actions and attracted body language, they can certainly engage with each others’ company, fall for each other, share laughter, etc. Without dating. Once that tiny obstacle diminishes, they can date. The best part in this situation is knowing the other party reciprocates mutual feelings.
That’s the difference. It’s tough getting over the fact that someone not requiting mutual feelings versus someone requiting mutual feelings. It’s happy versus sad emotion.
Learn to not blame yourself. All you have is ‘you’, so love yourself and let yourself make mistakes – you are not perfect, nobody is. There’s no doubt about it: unrequited love and lust are hard. Research has shown how different an experience it is (in terms of brain activity) compared to love that’s returned. Not that most of us need a scientist to tell them that: if you’ve loved and loved back, and another time loved and been left in the lurch, you know all too well what the difference is. You know how endings or break ups feel. And you may also know that moment in time when you decide it’s okay that you or they decided to leave the relationship. That it was okay to move on, to not always be there for the other person or to stop taking their calls so often or listening to their longing for you.
If you’re moving on from a breakup, a divorce or other relationship heartbreak read this post to handle the loss or heartbreak. If you’re trying to figure out how to reconnect with someone you love or lust after or are trying to come to a middle ground with your two very different sex drives or levels of desire, read this.
In my upcoming blog posts, we will explore some concrete tips to move on gracefully and also discuss some ways to reconnect with a partner. Do keep checking back, and don’t forget to like, subscribe and share.