The Bible says that God created all living things through the power of love. Many people crave this feeling. With the help of her energy, lovers are able to create miracles. She calls for a feat for the sake of her other half. In parallel with this, there is such a thing as unrequited love. It is considered grief, but there is always a choice of how to live with it.
What is unrequited love?
This is the absence on the part of one person of a mutual emotional and sensual response of the soul to the attraction, sympathy and deep affection of another. Unrequited love is like the action of identical poles of magnets. No matter how hard you try, they will never get closer to each other. The plot of unrequited love is very often described in literature and shown in films. Such dramaturgy guarantees success. An unhappy lover will certainly evoke compassion, and his soulless opponent will evoke condemnation, because no one wants to experience this feeling.
Unrequited love: who hurts more?
Unrequited love is experienced more acutely and painfully by those who have phenomenal memory and a focus on the past. The experience of unrequited love leads to a decision to protect oneself from pain, which is made overnight. No more relationships. It's better to be alone than with just anyone. The inability to forgive and negative states can lead to a withdrawn lifestyle. A new relationship, falling in love, then he himself breaks up - and everything is cut off. The relationship ends before it really begins.
If it happened that at first everything developed well, but then the failed second half abandoned him, then the pain multiplied with each such case. This is how bitter grievances arise. A man loved with all his soul, but his feelings were rejected. The lack of mutual love does not fit into his understanding, there is a distortion in the psyche, and a feeling appears: “I was deprived, I was not given enough.” Not understanding how to straighten out their mental state, a person focuses on negative aspects, thereby depriving himself of the opportunity to forgive.
The wait for gratitude for the love given can last for years. Unrequited love and what a man or woman with an anal vector should do to create a mutual relationship is a complex question. Often such a person is unable to let go of the past, his first love, tormented by painful memories and painful grievances.
Signs of unrequited love
Assessing an unrequited love feeling, experts note that the principle of relativity fully applies to this characteristic. Non-reciprocal love today can be reciprocated tomorrow. Its signs can also be considered relative:
- the partner is burdened by society or is indifferent to the presence of the lover;
- he has no desire to introduce him to his friends and relatives;
- the status of the relationship is in “suspense”;
- friendly relations are emphasized by all means;
- he himself does not strive for and avoids closer contact between the sexes;
- When communicating, he maintains neutral behavior without displays of tenderness or affection.
About unrequited love. Why do many people love unrequitedly?
Unrequited love in fiction is presented as something very romantic, which characterizes a person in love as a selfless, faithful person, an order of magnitude higher than other ordinary family people. Everyone has borscht and sliders, but here there is a breakdown, a taste of sadness, maybe poetry.
And, really, if poets and directors, instead of suffering and then creating, went to a psychotherapist, we would lose a lot of works.
If you are lucky and have a literary or any other talent, then I am for your suffering!
What should people from non-creative professions do? Who also doesn’t like to suffer? In my practice, I have encountered several similar cases, plus some observations of friends. And I myself was in a similar situation, but I acted as an object of unrequited love. I'll tell you this, the pleasure is dubious. After the first joy - “well, it’s amazing how he kills himself for me!” - severe punishment followed in the form of reproaches, attempts to rebuild, remake and immobilize the object of affection. That is, me.
Now, at present, I observe and work with this as a therapist and want to share my thoughts.
Let’s immediately separate: there are people who have experienced love in their lives, perhaps unrequited, periodically remember this person, sometimes with sadness, but this does not in the least prevent them from living life to the fullest.
There are those who love unrequitedly from a distance, but they are generally satisfied. This allows them to live their own lives, but adds a touch of piquancy and unusualness. A quiet haven where you can hide from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and dream. They usually don’t come to me with this.
They come quite exhausted, broken, with fervent requests to somehow help, “bring this scoundrel to his senses,” to make him fall in love. But the most amazing thing for me is how much effort, time and nerves some people can devote to this instead of looking around and finding someone more suitable.
But the paradox of such serious passions is that it is... profitable. People who practice unrequited love in their lives are very stubborn, no one holds on to their shackles as tightly as they do. After all, in this way they get a reliable method to hide from many processes and issues that, for one reason or another, they do not want to solve. For people who are afraid of experiencing separation, disappointment, loss, a deliberately failed position will help them not to face this.
A common example: after breaking up with one, usually significant, partner, a person immediately “falls in love” with the next. And no answer. He does not have the energy to build new relationships - he has not lived through the separation, he is unconsciously still there, in the previous relationship. But still, it is easier for him to experience heartache than to face disappointment and experience loss. So he cleverly avoided more painful experiences.
The insidiousness of unrequited love lies in the fact that it always covers what a person cannot bear to deal with in reality. “I love you, but he’s married. I love him, but he doesn’t love me. I love you, but we can’t be together…” Receive a bonus - by choosing a partner with whom it is impossible to be in reality, you are insured for many mental traumas. You will never get divorced because you are not married.
Typically, a woman chooses this path if she:
- I had a hard time with my parents' divorce as a child.
- believes that it is possible not to quarrel and not get irritated in relationships (it is difficult for her to conflict, to defend her opinion)
- difficult to meet, choose
- does not believe that someone who is free, adequate, attractive to her, etc. will pay attention to her.
In this case, she will most likely choose a man with whom she can have a utopian relationship. If a man doesn’t really want or is scared to take responsibility for the family, he will choose a married woman or someone who is unrequitedly in love.
What does unrequited love “feed on”, how does it live?
After all, if you think about it - I live my life, I liked the man, I got carried away, but I don’t see reciprocity on his part, I’m a little sad - it didn’t happen. But not finding nourishment, I switch to something alive, charged with interest, where an exchange takes place on both sides and my “hero” fades and fades and, in the end, gives way to something or someone else, more promising.
What needs to happen for a person who does not reciprocate my feelings to become attractive to me like a magnet for many years? So that feelings do not change color and the intensity of passions does not subside, even though nothing happens. The answer is simple - for this you need to really want to replace reality with fantasies. And the more a person is captive of his imaginations and hopes, the more terrible it is for him to return to real life. Everything there becomes fresh.
Unrequited love is a unique phenomenon. On the one hand, a person is in business - he loves. Passions are running high. But if you look from the outside, nothing really significant is happening in his life: he is not realizing his dreams and desires, he is not even figuring them out! What for? He has a main dream to be with that same person. And let the whole world wait.
This is how our defenses work: I love selflessly, and while I do this, my life seems to be filled with meaning. And it seems there is no need to look for your meaning, interest, take responsibility, change something, experience disappointment, mourn the loss and move on.
And this is the difficulty of working with such clients. They cling to this suffering because they do not believe that it could be different. They are even afraid of it. And to tell the truth, they don’t particularly believe that they deserve a different fate. The fact is that when this veil of one-sided cordiality falls, a sometimes ugly reality is revealed. It takes courage and a lot of support to face it. The same one that a person once did not receive from significant and close people. That vital message: You are valuable, you can do it, you have your own unique place on this earth. You have the right:
- to be loved
- do what's interesting
- make a mistake
- demand respectful treatment,
- have a relationship in which you feel warm and good
- be who you are
if a person appropriates these rights to himself, then he ceases to choose those with whom he has to fight for these rights. And if, after long, long conversations about that very “special person” (about how to change him, make him love himself), you have enough courage and interest to look into the depths of your soul, then I know that soon unrequited love will remain a thing of the past. Because shared love is born - for oneself.
Why does unrequited love happen?
Psychological analysis of this phenomenon helps to identify its origins. The reasons for unrequited love can be the following:
- Low personal self-esteem. It prevents you from showing the real essence of a person.
- Selfishness. A person focuses on personal emotional pain, turning a blind eye to the needs of the soul of another.
- Psychological attitude of the victim. In such a state, suffering subconsciously brings satisfaction.
- Lack of skills in dealing with the opposite sex. Pushkin described it this way: “but I, loving, was deaf and dumb.”
- Lack of common interests. This is one of the manifestations of selfishness. It's always interesting to be with your loved one.
- Mismatch of goals in life, life principles. Unrequited love will become mutual if the one who loves is able to change his life paradigm in favor of the loved one.
Why do unrequited feelings arise?
Unrequited love is a tendency that develops in closed people. They are not confident in their strengths and capabilities.
There are several categories of those who are susceptible to one-sided feelings:
- These are people who have failed in one of their relationships. Failure caused them to withdraw into themselves and become stuck in a painful memory. They return to it again and again, and cannot cope with the negative feelings and emotions caused. Feeling unrequited is one of the symptoms of painful memories of the past.
- People with limited, low self-esteem and self-esteem. They lack self-esteem and do not realize the full value of their own lives, despite the fact that they are loved and appreciated by their loved ones.
- Those who have withdrawn into themselves due to fear of real life. Such people believe that the world around them is full of real and emotional dangers. One of these dangers is relationships with the opposite sex. Therefore, all the feelings that arise in such people are experienced by them and never go beyond the boundaries of their inner world.
- Unrequited love often occurs in those who were not instilled with a model of a happy family in childhood. Parents did not show by their own example a trusting relationship, and as a result gave rise to a lot of internal complexes in the child and uncertainty about the world around him. This category of people does not believe in the existence of reciprocity, but tries to experience the feeling of love within themselves.
- A very strange category is a number of people who are afraid to change something in their lives. Despite the feeling of love, they will not try to take active action, but on the contrary, they will want to leave everything as it is. It’s easier to survive everything than to change the usual order of things.
- The last ones are people who could not determine their position in life. They are incapable of making decisions and choosing a partner on their own. If a choice does occur, then in most cases it is non-reciprocal.
To summarize this concept, we can say that unrequited love is a human tendency that arises in the process of his psychological and emotional education, as well as socialization.
You can get rid of this feeling, but to do this you need to work hard on yourself, your inner and outer world.
What does unrequited love lead to?
In such a situation, the individual has the feeling that he is in a hopeless situation. The feeling of personal happiness is associated only with the object of love. Physically, he is nearby, but at the same time hopelessly far away in sensory and emotional terms. One-sided love can lead to the following results:
- Weak and weak-willed people break down morally. They fall into depressive states of mind. A person cannot work, study, or live normally. Cases of suicide in addicted people are common.
- Strong but unbalanced individuals are capable of rash actions due to unrequited passion. They can even force the object of their love into cohabitation. Another radical solution for them is to eliminate the cause of suffering through violent death.
- Strong-willed and purposeful people make it their goal to achieve recognition, if possible. In the case when “you love, but you don’t,” and there is absolutely no chance of reciprocity, they leave the path of the beloved person’s life.
It is necessary to open up
Why do girls (it is the weaker sex that is more often capable of suffering for a long time for a man) allow themselves to enter into such dependence?
It should be noted right away that you can also receive positive emotions from such love.
No matter how strange it may sound, it is a fact. The feeling of love at first gives a feeling of lightness, it can motivate a woman to create, give her an increase in strength, a desire to become better. At the same time, non-reciprocity can do terrible things: develop complexes and make a girl insecure.
Of course, talking about a teenager’s unrequited feelings is one thing. Almost every person goes through this stage of growing up. As a result, teenagers get over it and move on to someone else. If we talk about a mature person, then you need to have the courage to explain your feelings. You can take steps forward, give signs and then form conclusions. If you sit back, you can spend your entire life loving someone unrequitedly.
There is another interesting statement by psychologists: if a person waits for an answer to his feelings, then this is not love. A person who truly loves does not wait for an answer - he simply loves. Of course, there are negative emotions about the inability to be around, but it is important to learn how to direct them in the right direction: engage in some kind of creativity, work more, go to the gym and, most importantly, not close yourself off from others. You need to be willing to accept other relationships, but at the same time rejoice in the fact that you can experience tenderness, even if it is one-sided.
Pros of unrequited love
The paradox of the situation is that it can benefit the suffering person. If an individual copes with mental pain, he will gain the invaluable experience of experiencing non-reciprocal feelings. It consists of the following possibilities:
- Adjust your self-esteem. A mental shake puts a person in his real place in life.
- Learn to feel not only yourself, but also the person nearby.
- Get rid of fantasies and illusions of possessing the ideal of love, look at things realistically.
- Gain the ability to pay attention to the pain and suffering of other people.
- Accept another person with his shortcomings, needs, wants and desires.
- Temper your soul and strengthen your spirit.
- The experience of unrequited love will give impetus to self-improvement in order to be worthy of the object of adoration.
What to do if you love unrequitedly: step-by-step instructions
Emotionally, it is difficult to assess the situation objectively. It is much easier to survive the lack of reciprocity if you know a clear plan of action. What to do if your love is unrequited:
- Stop looking for meetings. You shouldn’t torment yourself with aimless contemplation of your loved one. If you know that the relationship will not work out, then it is better to minimize contact.
- Confess your feelings. Not everyone is capable of performing such a decisive action. Maybe you think that love is unrequited? Only a direct question to the object of passion will definitely help you find out.
- Get rid of reminders. If you are convinced that attempts to create a couple with this person are absolutely futile, you need to get rid of any reminders of his presence in your life. Delete all contacts and photos. This way it will be much easier to forget love.
- Pay attention to other attractive members of the opposite sex. The light did not converge like a wedge on just one person. Be prepared to fall in love with someone else, and to do this you just need to look around you more often.
- Relax with cheerful friends. Going to visit a friend or girlfriend with a bottle of wine under your arm is not very helpful in trying to forget your loved one. There you will be even more immersed in the discussion of the pressing problem. If you’re going to communicate with friends, then with a whole group of people, where you won’t have time to absorb all the details of your personal tragedy.
To forget the person you love unrequitedly, just grab yourself and shake yourself. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and overthinking yourself. Life is so short, and you need to live it as happily as possible.
Stages of unrequited love
Like any long-term phenomenon, this feeling arises, lives and fades according to the script. How long unrequited love lasts depends on the spiritual qualities of the individual. However, there are certain stages in this process:
- The moment a feeling arises. The euphoria of realizing the state of being in love brings many pleasant minutes or hours.
- The phase of preparation for an attempt at recognition in order to receive reciprocity. This stage is characterized by mental anguish from the indecision to admit feelings.
- A period of suffering due to rejected feelings. This is the longest stage if a person is weak. For someone strong in spirit, the lamentations can end quickly.
- Active action stage. Having suffered, a person forgets unrequited feelings and looks for another love. If this cannot be done, one or both participants in the drama may die. Only the strongest are able to achieve reciprocity by changing themselves.
Does unrequited love have a chance?
All people, without exception, are susceptible to unrequited love; age or gender do not play any role, but character and temperament play a key role. Sometimes it happens that, experiencing his love, a person crosses a certain emotional barrier, breaks down and goes to confess his love.
Recognition in itself is already a significant stress for a person in love, and if it turns out that his feelings are mutual, then he may experience a shock, because he did not even think that he had a chance for this relationship.
Often in such situations it turns out that unrequited love was simply far-fetched, the person in love simply loved the very feeling of unrequitedness, it provided him with the much-needed intensity of emotions.
It is generally accepted that unrequited love lasts less than a year and gradually fades due to various circumstances. For example, the object of passion found out about the interest in his person and harshly rejected the lover or changed his place of residence. In rare cases, unrequited love can last more than one year, but this rather indicates a person’s unpreparedness to build a relationship than the strength of love.
How to survive unrequited love?
Psychologists give a number of simple but effective recommendations. It is advisable to receive them during psychotherapy sessions. If this is not possible, below are tips on how to get rid of unrequited love:
- try to be in public all the time, in the company of friends and relatives;
- It is useful to distract your attention with various activities and interests;
- try to find positive aspects in this and write them down;
- convince yourself that this condition will pass over time;
- make a real psychological portrait of the object of your love (with shortcomings);
- make a plan for changing yourself to eliminate unrequited love and achieve reciprocity.
What is love without reciprocation?
You can’t order your heart, as they say. The object of love does not always reciprocate, and we are forced to experience deep feelings, only in our dreams counting on joint happiness.
To put it in a dry term, unrequited love is a feeling of deep emotional attachment to a person that does not evoke any return from him. A person who has fallen in love often notices the following symptoms:
- Mental pain that intensifies when meeting the object of passion.
- Nervous state, insomnia.
- Deterioration in appearance: weight loss, bruises under the eyes.
- Problems at work and school: loss of concentration, lack of motivation, absenteeism.
- Psychological disorders: panic attacks, depression.
- Quarrels with close relatives and friends.
- Reluctance to meet and communicate with other members of the opposite sex.
As a result, many of these symptoms can lead to a significant deterioration in the quality of life of the person in love. There are determined and positive people who pull themselves together and continue to live, no matter what. But more emotional lovers, who are predisposed to nervous disorders, really suffer, receiving real mental trauma from unrequited feelings.
What is unrequited love? This is an almost uncontrollable craving for a person, regular dreams with his participation and a desire to be close to him. When a desire cannot be realized, it becomes a mania, as well as the cause of pseudo-heroic actions, various stupidities and sometimes even suicide. That's why you need to know how to get rid of the feeling of unrequited love if you feel that the experience has gone on for too long.
How can you help your friend get over unrequited love?
True female friendship will help in difficult times. The very first and simplest advice is to sincerely listen to your friend. Unanswered love, remaining inside a person, tears his soul. Having spoken out, your friend will feel relieved. Only at this moment it is not recommended to feel sorry for her. We can advise you to change your life: throw away old things, change your previous places of walking, get rid of mutual acquaintances. For support, it is recommended to keep your friend busy with some joint activity. It’s even better to help meet a new young man.
How to avoid unrequited love?
The main thing is not to lose heart. It should be remembered that true unselfish love cannot be unrequited. To achieve reciprocity, there are recommendations from the lucky ones who have achieved this:
- You need to learn to share your partner’s life: listen, hear and understand him.
- Forget that there is unrequited love. At first, you can try to become a loyal friend who is always ready to help.
- Find common interests, hobbies or activities.
- Be near the object of your adoration as often as possible in companies and in society. Such presence should not be intrusive.
- Become the man of your partner's dreams. This is achieved by changing your character traits.
What signs should alert an unrequited lover and his loved ones?
- Understanding the hopelessness of the current situation leads to prolonged depression and persistent emotional decline: a person forgets or does not want to eat, feels unwilling to do usual things, and “withdraws into himself” for a long time.
- Obsession with the object of one's passion and obsessive thoughts cause the nervous system to constantly tense up, which can negatively affect the general condition of the body. Weakness, irritability, headache, and decreased immunity may appear.
- Manifestation of aggression, immunity to criticism. Sometimes hostility is directed at oneself, which is very dangerous, as it can lead to personality destruction and even suicide attempts. In this case, you need to contact a psychiatrist.
If everything is not so bad, and things have not gone to extremes, you can try to cope with the negative aspects on your own. Professional psychologists give some useful advice that you should listen to if unrequited love is causing you suffering and pain.
How to overcome suffering due to unrequited love
- For a moment, just “go with the flow”, let go of the situation, giving yourself time and the opportunity to understand and experience everything that is happening.
- Think that the subject of your feelings and experiences is absolutely not to blame for the current situation; no one asked his consent. And your hero is simply not able to reciprocate love for certain reasons, for example, the beloved is bound by any obligations, or at the moment starting a relationship is not part of his plans at all.
- Learn to see the positive sides in everything: character and fortitude are developed in such trials. And there is no need to consider your loved one as a hunting trophy, which simply must be obtained no matter what, you should respect the individual’s right to his own choice.
- Systematize your life: find an activity that interests you and evokes positive emotions - go in for sports, make more contact with friends. It might be worth trying to meet a new person. But don’t rush headlong into new acquaintances, thinking that this will help you quickly forget your unrequited love. This is wrong.
Unrequited love is nothing more than an illusion, a mirage. You fall in love not with an earthly person, but with a certain image, an inaccessible ideal, invented by your imagination and “convenient” for suffering. Love always involves two people, and if the object of your desire does not want to enter into a relationship, then this is not your soul mate and the love relationship you are dreaming about will happen with someone else, they are ahead. To overcome suffering and get rid of unrequited love, you need carefully analyze your feelings and find out why you are attracted to this particular person, and what objective reasons prevent you from being together.
Imagine two options for developing your future with the subject of your passion. The prospect of living your whole life with a person who doesn’t love you can hardly bring delight, can it? Once you understand this, it will become easier. The pain will go away gradually, giving way to pleasant memories that do not bring suffering, perhaps with a tinge of light sadness. Only by feeling like a free, fulfilled person can you enjoy life, making those around you happy. There will be no more torment of unrequited love and there will definitely be the one who wants to be next to you!
Video on the topic of unrequited love. Psychologist Natalya Tolstaya will tell you what to do for someone who loves and cannot pull themselves together.
“Not to be loved is only failure.
Misfortune is not to love! Albert Camus
Some people consider love to be their life's work. Others treat it coolly, believing that it is a “fad” that does not lead to anything good. What is unrequited love? It has always existed and was the “engine” for the creation of new immortal works of art, and sometimes it even became the cause of real crimes. This is what we would like to talk to you about today, to consider how to experience unrequited love.
Books about unrequited love
From the numerous list of literature, the following works from world classics are recommended for reading:
- “Gone with the Wind”
by M. Mitchell. This is a perfect example of how, over time, unrequited feelings turn into true love. The novel provides a mechanism for overcoming suffering. This is the phrase “I’ll think about it tomorrow.” - "The Great Gatsby"
F.S. Fitzgerald. The book describes how the protagonist's pursuit of his illusory ideal of love led him to ruin. - “Impatience of the Heart”
by S. Zweig. This is an emotional story about the hopeless love of a beautiful but paralyzed girl for a brilliant officer. The main character felt sorry and had compassion for the beauty, but he did not have reciprocity. - “Eugene Onegin”
A. Pushkin. The novel in verse tells how unrequited love led to tragedy and hardening of the heart. She caused changes in the woman, which, over the years, amazed the former chosen one. - “Garnet bracelet”
A. Kuprin. A story about unrequited love for a woman from a higher social environment.
Stop living in dreams
One way or another, unrequited love has never made anyone happy. Be it a man who prefers to hide his emotions, a woman who is ready to continue to love for many years to come, or a teenager who believes that the pain of unrequited love will never end.
Read more: What to do if a man grows cold
How to forget unrequited love and become free and open to real relationships again? Here, first of all, the attitude is important: the person himself must want to get rid of such addiction. And then you need to learn to listen to the voice of reason and understand what is important:
- Tell yourself honestly: they won’t love you. Never. The main problem is that you are still entertaining yourself with illusions about a miracle. In your dreams, the object of your love will come to its senses and sooner or later you will have a real relationship where you will be happy and loved. These are just dreams that will never come true.
- Love yourself. Understand that you are an individual and do not want to be dependent. Feel the taste of freedom that will open before you when you throw off the shackles of unrequited feelings.
- Stop being afraid. You will definitely meet a person who will appreciate you and will be able to enjoy your tenderness and depth.
- Do something. Yes, find something that will captivate you, leaving no time for useless dreams.
- Take time for yourself: start going to the gym, enroll in an art school. Release your energy.
And most importantly, give this plan time to implement. As cliché as it may sound, time heals. It has helped millions of people. Believe me, it will help you too.
Movie about unrequited love
The following films clearly reveal the topic:
- “I ask you to blame Klava K for my death.”
. The film shows one-way teenage love that almost led to suicide. - "Best Friend's Wedding
" The comedy tells in a light way how to achieve reciprocity. - "Afonya"
. The film has two storylines about unrequited feelings. One is the love of a modest nurse for the main character, a cynical plumber. The second shows the character’s love for a beautiful client who is in a different social stratum of society. - "Removal Rules: Hitch Method"
. Having experienced unrequited love, the main character developed a system for helping men win the hand and heart of their chosen ones.
