Unexpected Switch to Unrequited Love.
Admittedly, it is not easy to pick up the pieces of your broken heart and move on. Isn’t this what we have learnt from the first fairy tale of our life? That true love never goes in vain and that they lived happily ever after? The truth is that a heart once broken is not the end of the world. There is not just one love possible in a lifetime. Especially, not when it was unrequited love!
In my previous post, I have discussed some ways in which relationships suddenly change from love to unrequited love for one when someone who loved you deeply just switches off and hurts you in ways that were unimaginable at the height of your mutual love. Perhaps, once upon a time, your love said it was impossible to “just” fall out of love with someone but now that has happened. Perhaps you promised each other if you ever happened to start falling apart, you will seek counseling but now that idea is refused by your partner. What happened to those promises of solidarity? What happened to the person who seemed so crazy about you? What happened to the disbelief that someone could do what is now being done? Where did your secure feelings of mutual love go? Where is life as you knew it? Who would willingly choose this nightmare? What planet have you stumbled onto?
Such questions keep coming back to you and you have no answers. Perhaps your ex has spiraled into some other unexpected mindset. They have cheated or abused you or acted terribly and now, instead wanting forgiveness, they want out. They’ve taken up excessive partying or drugs and alcohol or gambling. Perhaps they’re depressed or upset or self-absorbed in some way. The bad actor is now stomping on your forgiving heart. How can that be?
Sometimes someone experiences a major life event and has trouble bouncing back from it. It can be an accident, a death in the family or the loss of a job. You offer to help; you beg to help.You ask, “Don’t you want someone to help carry the burden?” It’s clear that they do not. No matter what, it’s clear that something terrible has happened.
Dating someone new should be fun, exciting, and enjoyable. If you can monitor and influence your own behaviour during the ‘getting to know’ phase, you have more hope of getting to know whether you and they really will work together without needing to blame anyone if it doesn’t work out. Surely, nobody marries with a plan to separate or divorce. Nobody marries expecting to live with hope deferred. This is why we often find ourselves in unrequited love or sinking relationships, with no understanding of how we reached there. It usually starts with a nice romantic relationship, gradually losing the sheen and turning to something you never wanted it to be. As I have discussed in my article Hopeless Unrequited Love, by the time you realise something is wrong, it gets so bad, you find it difficult to handle it right and you cannot afford to lose it either, because you are hopelessly in love. There certainly must be some warning signs? What do we miss that could’ve warned us?
In almost all rejection scenarios, the first reaction is disbelief. You come up with a million reasons for this behavior, none of which have to do with how they feel about you. I refuse to believe this! I’ve heard stories of this sort of thing and everything works out in the end. This can’t be! it’s a flirtation from work that will end soon, it’s a mid-life crisis (no matter the age). It will all be over soon. It’s a misstep on the way to a happy life with me. I just need to wait it out. There are movies where it works out, and books where it works out. Certainly, it can work out in real life. Can’t it?
It could have been yesterday or last week, last year or ten years ago, yet, all you can think about is how you are meant to be and how you have both been happy either as lovers or friends. Still, your mind takes you back there every minute of every day when you both were happy.
How to overcome this? I am going to discuss it in my next post, so keep checking back!