


"Learn ways to express your feelings of not being loved, and develop a different understanding of how you and your partner show love.” “Before you decide to leave, get counseling to see if your view of the relationship is accurate or healthy," Wish says. If you’d rather navigate this conversation with professional support, a couples therapist can help facilitate it. According to Wish, if you're in a committed partnership and you suspect your feelings aren’t reciprocated, your first step should be confirming that you are accurately interpreting your dynamic as a couple. Knowing how to deal when someone doesn’t love you back can be tricky, and it mostly depends on your relationship status. In order to understand why this is happening to you, or why this cycle continues to repeat itself, there are a few questions to ask yourself when it comes to why you keep falling for people who don’t treat you the same. Trust me - they’re out there and they can’t wait to meet you. By being honest with yourself, you can break this cycle of unrequited love, leaving more room to find people who adore you right back and in the ways you deserve. However, this doesn’t mean you’re doomed to continue to fall for people who won’t love you back. “Studies conducted on the topic of relationships suggest that people who engage in relationships anxiously are more likely to experience unrequited love than those who go into relationships confidently,” Bates-Duford added.

Tarra Bates-Duford, PhD, Founder, and CEO of Family Matters Counseling Group, told Bustle.Īt the end of the day, this kind of situation may have more to do with you than with the object of your affection - it could even be a sign of some relationship anxiety. “We are also more likely to experience unrequited love when we have already fallen head-over-heels in love with the 'idea' of being in love,” Dr. If it keeps happening, loving someone who doesn’t love you could be a sign that you have a romanticized idea of what love looks like. Unrequited love can happen to anyone, but if you start noticing a pattern, it could be more than just bad luck. But even if it isn’t that obvious of a rejection, any instance of loving someone who doesn’t love you back can be painful. The thought of saying “I love you” and hearing crickets in response is crushing. The pain of becoming attached to someone in a way that isn't mutual can be so unbelievably traumatizing. I think we can all agree that unrequited love is one of the worst feelings imaginable.
