Everyone wants to love and be loved, but sometimes these two desires do not coincide. Unrequited love becomes a source of strong experiences and negative emotions . However, even this situation carries the possibility for internal growth and self-improvement.
What is unrequited love?
Poets and writers, artists and directors talk about love as a kind of mystery, which is impossible to understand completely. A strong sense of love can come in a completely unexpected moment and subdue all thoughts and desires. At some point the lover begins to realize that the center of his universe has become another person, with his inner world and desires. Captivated by thoughts of another, a lover tries to be closer to the object of his passion, to see him, to hear, to spend time with him, to make his life better.
The lover always aspires to evoke reciprocal love from the object of his passion. Only the first time it may seem that reciprocity is not so important: just to be close to your loved one. But over time, unrequited love becomes a burden for a person, drains his strength, takes up every thought. Therefore, the emotional intensity of unrequited love can be much stronger and lasts longer than mutual love .
Unrequited love in psychology
The famous father of psychoanalysis Erich Fromm wrote that true love necessarily causes reciprocity. He urged all people to learn how to love correctly and called love art. Understanding the reasons why love is unrequited and does not evoke a response in the heart of another, Fromm speaks of human laziness, selfishness and ignorance in this matter. Modern psychologists view love as a combination of chemical reactions caused by a variety of factors.
To have a love feeling, a person in the head should coincide with a number of signs that have a certain importance for him. Such signs can be: appearance, timbre of voice and intonation, similarity with one of parents, manners, smell, situation, etc. That is, for mutual love the desired picture should coincide in two people. Unrequited love can be described as a feeling caused by the representation of only one person and the lack of necessary coincidences in the other.
Why is there unrequited love?
Irresponsible strong love can have different reasons:
- Low self-esteem, which prevents a person from showing himself on the best side;
- selfishness, as a result of which the lover concentrates on his feelings and is not able to understand the desires and needs of his object of love;
- a victim program that constantly leads a person in a situation in which he must suffer and suffer;
- inability to communicate with the opposite sex;
- inability to love another person, to understand, to hear;
- inability to present themselves, to show their best qualities;
- mismatch of partners' views on life;
- differences of partners in the nature, interests, intellectual level.
An undivided feeling is spoken with negative intonation. In this case, do not forget about what unrequited love teaches. She can tell a person that he needs to change, change some of his views or habits. Long unrequited love helps a person to become more patient, loving, understanding, caring.
Unrequited love - signs
Trying to find the answer to the question how to find out that love is unrequited, one should remember that the situation can change. Undivided love today can become a mutual tomorrow. Therefore, do not be upset and put an end to the relationship that may become more intimate in the future. Although psychologists call the signs of unrequited love, they always note that each relationship is special and one should not take in all the signs as absolutely suitable for a particular case. We are talking about such signs of unrequited love:
- the partner does not aspire to spend together as much as possible;
- beloved or beloved do not want to acquaint a partner with their friends;
- a loved one avoids talking about relationships, does not want to be determined in the status of relations;
- the partner does not seek physical contact;
- a loved one does not show affection and tenderness;
- in a relationship there is a certain inconsistency.
Can unrequited love be reciprocated?
Unrequited love is very painful and often raises the question of how to experience unrequited love. To see a loved one nearby and not be able to create full relations with him is hard and painful. Even in this hopeless situation there is a ray of hope: an undivided feeling can trigger a response to the heart of a loved one. Practical experience shows that many family couples have developed from relationships in which at first only one person was in love. Whether love can bear fruit depends not only on the circumstances, but also on the efforts, wisdom and power of love of the lover.
Unrequited love - what to do?
Unrequited love for a man or a woman is an occasion to look inside yourself and try to understand why love has no response. Such tips can help to achieve reciprocity:
- It is necessary to learn to listen to a partner and understand it;
- more often talk about what interests a partner;
- find common pursuits or hobbies;
- try to enter the company of a loved one;
- To find out what qualities of character impress the beloved person and develop them in himself.
How to survive unrequited love - advice of psychologists
Many people who have experienced unrequited love say that although they suffered from these feelings, they were happy with their love. If it is difficult to be in this state, you can take advantage of such advice from psychologists as how to survive unrequited love:
- try to be in society more often;
- do not think often about how to deal with unrequited love, it is better to be distracted from all thoughts on this subject through communication and interesting hobbies;
- to look at your love as an opportunity to get pleasant emotions;
- to understand that after a while a person begins to look at his past feelings differently and may be glad that reciprocity with that particular person did not arise;
- remember that time dulls any pain.
Unrequited love - consequences
Strong unrequited love often leaves a memory for life. What will this memory be, depends on how the future of man will develop. A happy family, a loved one will let you remember about unrequited love in the past with a touch of light sadness. An unfulfilled relationship in the present will make one think of past non-reciprocal love as a lost chance. The consequences of non-reciprocal love will depend only on the person himself, who must draw conclusions from the situation and create the right attitude to it.
What does the church say about unrequited love?
According to the Christian tradition, all love is from God. From this point of view, pure unrequited love is a chance for a person to show his best qualities for the sake of another person. Biblical love is agape love, altruistic, requiring nothing in return. God loves this kind of love. Unrequited love teaches a person humility, patience and service for the benefit of others.
Books about unrequited love
Non-reciprocal love is comprehensively described in many works of art. Books about unrequited love help to better understand yourself and the situation that has arisen. The top best books on this topic include:
- Margaret Mitchell "Gone with the Wind" . The main heroine struggles all her life with her unrequited love and only at the end of her life realizes that in fact she already loves another person for a long time.
- Francis Fitzgerald "The Great Gatsby" . The book is based on a story about the unrequited love of a rich man who all his life dreams only of seeing his beloved at least sometimes.
- Stefan Zweig "Letter from a stranger" . Love is a lifetime - this is the plot of this work. An unsuspecting man only after many years learns how fervently he was loved all this time.