Many stories and screenplays have been written about one-sided love, and the shortest love stories in the world can be told with these sentences: “I love him, but he doesn’t love me” or “I love him, but he loves someone else.” One-sided love has symptoms such as heart palpitations, hot cheeks, or loss of limbs when seeing the beloved, but it is also associated with unpleasant feelings such as pain, sadness, and embarrassment. In such a relationship, a person is sad because he knows the other party does not love him but does not want to accept it. If you’ve had this experience or are currently involved with someone who doesn’t like you, this article is for you. In this article, we explain what one-sided love is and what you should do about it; Separation or trying to revive it?
Signs of one-sided love
First of all, you should know whether what you feel is one-sided love or not. To recognize this problem, you must pay attention to the signs. Signs that tell you what you’re feeling isn’t real love and won’t set you up for a healthy, romantic relationship. Next, we explain the signs of one-sided love.
1. You initiate every conversation and communication
Indeed, texting or calling isn’t a turn-off, but when you’re always the initiator, it’s a lame job. In a dynamic relationship, both parties look out for each other, give each additional energy, and not all emotional responsibilities fall on one person.
2. Only you like to touch the other side
When two people love each other, they want to hold hands, hug, or sit together. On the contrary, when he doesn’t like someone else, he is tormented by every contact and tries to escape. So if your significant other does not want to hold your hands, hug you, or pull away whenever you do, you should suspect that your love is one-sided.
3. You think your lover is the most perfect person in the world and has no flaws
In a romantic relationship, both parties see each other’s weaknesses but love each other despite these weaknesses. In other words, they don’t see each other as complete and accept the imperfection of their opposite side. But in one-sided love, the lover sees his beloved as a whole and flawless person. People involved in one-sided love create a mythical image of the other person in their mind and fall in love with it. Therefore, they are hurt when they realize that the real lover is different from the picture they created and is an ordinary human being.
4. The other party does not spend any time getting to know you
For a relationship to form, both parties must get to know and understand each other sufficiently. Over time, they create shared experiences, ask each other questions, and try to understand their emotional partner differently.
In one-way love, only one person does it. He asks questions of the other party, tries to create shared experiences with him to get to know more, and tries to build a relationship. But the other person either avoids answering or only talks about himself and doesn’t care to know the other person. This means he does not intend to establish a serious relationship and only talks to someone to pass the time.
Why do we fall in love one-sidedly?
When you realize how painful one-sided love is, you wonder why you got into this feeling. However, some emotions are not in our control and involve us before we know them.
Some of the reasons why people get involved in such love are:
- You imagine your partner is ideal, and you like the mental image you created of him.
- For you, one-sided love is a pseudo-relationship, and you are in a relationship without interacting with anyone, and maybe this is what is attractive to you.
- To be in a real relationship, you must be vulnerable and allow the other person to penetrate different parts of your life. Maybe this is scary for you, and you prefer to stay in a one-way pseudo-relationship without risk-taking, vulnerability, and commitment.
- You may be someone who naturally finds elusive relationships more appealing, preferring mythical one-way love to a healthy but ordinary relationship.
- Maybe your other person is an old friend with whom you share many interests and hobbies. That’s why you think he can be your emotional partner.
Damage caused by one-sided love
You can probably imagine how much these destructive emotions can hurt you. Unrequited love is a source of stress and emotional turmoil that affects all aspects of your life and feelings. The harmful effects of such a relationship include:- Decreased self-esteem ;
- feeling rejected ;
- feeling unworthy of mutual love and receiving affection from the other side;
- excessive feeling of loneliness ;
- moving away from others and isolation;
- Not accepting new relationships even when a healthy and reasonable person asks to know you and start an emotional connection with you;
- A sharp increase in stress.
How to make one-way love two-way?
In stories and movies, one-sided love often becomes two-sided after a while, and the lover is attracted to the lover, but in the real world, such a thing is rare. Give your partner the right to choose and accept that he may not be willing to convert one-way love into two-way love. If so, step away and free yourself from these destructive emotions. Maybe after some time, you can have a friendly relationship with the person you love and follow your common interests and hobbies together. Of course, you can only continue your close relationship when you have passed your intense feelings and are ready for a friendly relationship with the person in question.
Ways to leave one-sided love
Leaving one-sided love seems impossible for many people. They prefer to remain in the stress and torment of this one-sided love and neglect of the other side but do not experience the failure of love! Even though you think it is impossible to get rid of one-sided love and the loss of love will destroy you, you should give yourself time and slowly release yourself from this bond.
Here are some suggestions to get rid of one-sided love, which may be challenging to implement in the first days, but over time, it will help you get out of this toxic pseudo-relationship and smile at new opportunities in your life.
- Allow yourself to grieve and shed tears to mourn the loss of your love.
- Take enough time for yourself, seek counseling, and be sure to repair the damage caused by one-sided love. These inner wounds take time to heal, so take the time to heal.
- Busy yourself with valuable things and hobbies you like so you don’t get involved in mental rumination.
- Know your thought patterns. Some people tend towards toxic relationships and one-sided love because of their old thought patterns. These patterns are formed from childhood and may also impact a person’s adult life. So, with the help of a psychologist, find these patterns and break them to get ready to enter a healthy relationship.
- Focus on yourself. Write a list of things you want to do and do them. Put your goals and plans on paper and start trying to achieve them. Invest in yourself, grow, and love yourself.
Do we need a psychologist to get rid of one-sided love?
It depends on you. Some people can manage their emotions and thoughts and eliminate this poisonous pseudo-relationship. But others need the help of experts to get rid of one-sided love. If you have the following symptoms, we recommend seeking help from a psychologist to end a toxic emotional relationship.
- You tend to return to the old routine and get involved in toxic feelings and thoughts.
- You have symptoms of post-breakup depression.
- I am constantly dealing with mental ruminations and negative emotions.
- You think about suicide or harming yourself.
- You want to find and eliminate those thought patterns leading to inappropriate and unreasonable relationships.
Unrequited love is not always one-sided.
The feelings and desires we mention below are similar to one-sided love. If you have such feelings, you should take the methods explained in the previous sections and save yourself from a failed relationship that often does not even begin.
- You are interested in someone with whom you cannot connect emotionally due to distance, class, or other differences.
- You have fallen in love with a married person while you are also married.
- You broke up with your ex-spouse, but after a while, you feel you love him again.
How should we react to the one-sided love of others?
If you are someone who doesn’t like another, follow three crucial points.
- Talking to the other person just because you have a crush on them is like being friends with Aunt Bear! Talking about the fact that you don’t have feelings for him may hurt both of you, but you must do it once and for all.
- Don’t be vague, and don’t keep your other party in the salt water! Express your feelings clearly and clarify his task.
- Reject your partner as gently and kindly as possible. Please explain why you can’t have a relationship and tell him he is valuable. Rejecting a person’s love and interest in you is a bitter experience for him, so understand and talk to him with this in mind.
Last word; Take care of yourself by breaking free from one-sided love
You may not believe it, but one-sided love hurts both of your hate. The lover’s inattention saddens the lover, and the lover feels guilty and feels uncomfortable because of the lover’s inattention. So getting rid of one-sided love is for your and your partner’s benefit. In one-sided love, the person in love is so involved in his feelings that he overlooks that the other party does not have such feelings. This article explained why one-sided love is created, what harm it causes you, and how you should get over it. If you have such experience, please share it in the comments section.
