Unrequited love happens in the life of almost every person, putting him before a difficult choice. What to do if this happens to you? Is it possible to avoid suffering or quickly get rid of it? How do psychologists advise dealing with unrequited love? Is there any point in fighting and are we able to take control of it? The answers are in the article below.
Is there such love in the world? Types of love
If we are talking about feelings, then we should discard all rationality. There are no and cannot be unambiguous answers, a clear division into black and white. It cannot be said that one feeling is false and the other is true - logic does not work here. It also cannot be said that a mutual feeling is love, and a non-mutual feeling is not. Sometimes it seems to people that everything is fine, the relationship is wonderful, but in fact this feeling turns out to be not mutual love. If we consider love through the prism of reciprocity, then it can be conditionally divided into mutual and non-reciprocal. In one case, the object responds to the feeling of the other, and in the second does not experience sympathy or reciprocal attraction.
How to fix the situation?
Having read the previous sections, you might have gotten the impression that one-sided sympathy is a hopeless matter, doomed to failure in advance. We hasten to reassure you that everything is not as clear as it may seem at first glance. There are cases when a person managed to overcome the indifference of a partner and emerge victorious from the problem. Do you want the same? The following psychological tricks will help you with this:
- Learn to understand your chosen one. Simple advice, but difficult to implement. Oddly enough, but your happiness depends on it. Why? It's simple, understanding your partner's needs and his inner world - you take a giant step towards mutual sympathy. Recent research in the field of interpersonal relationships has shown that people are more likely to choose partners who demonstrate their sincere interest in them and prefer to talk about them rather than about themselves.
- If you notice that your hobbies with your chosen one are in different areas of interest, then there is only one way out - to adapt to the preferences of the object of passion. For example, he loves traveling outdoors, and you love growing begonias at home. Do you want to achieve reciprocal love? Then it’s time for you to buy boots with strong soles, a sleeping bag and learn to make a fire with one match. Otherwise, your sympathy will remain an unrequited dummy. Well, the begonias on the windowsill do not attract tourists, even if you crack them!
- Try to enter the company of your lover. However, this should be done not directly, but in a roundabout way. For these purposes, use friends who are already part of the society you need. Let them introduce you there, as if by chance. Otherwise, your partner will get the impression that you are stalking him. And this never led to any good.
- Through mutual friends, try to find out what personal qualities in another person attract your chosen one. Perhaps all his past girlfriends were well-read or excellent cooks. Take this knowledge and improve your skills. This is the only way you will get closer to achieving your cherished goal: to be with him.
- No intrusiveness. Psychologists are convinced that obsession is the “first sign” of unrequited love. You start constantly calling the person you like, besiege his entrance in the hope of meeting your eyes, bump into him a hundred times at work or school, carefully monitor his social networks. And what is the outcome? You are absolutely indifferent to him. Why? No one is ready to love those who have no self-respect. So avoid importunity and use common sense in everything.
What is unreciprocated love?
A feeling can be called unrequited when another person feels nothing towards you except indifference or ordinary sympathy, treats you like a friend. It doesn’t matter how often people spend time together, whether they are with friends, whether they live nearby or in different cities, whether they are married or not. If a person loves, then he is capable of much, distances and obstacles on the way can be overcome, if there is a desire, that is, a feeling, so either it is there or it is not.
Non-reciprocal love happens at any age, regardless of status, worldview, and so on. But still more often this happens at a young age. Teenagers often don’t know what they want, they are vulnerable and their mental state is extremely unstable. Probably many people had such love in their youth.
How to forget an unrequited loved one
An unrequited feeling causes a feeling of hopelessness, turning life into a series of dreary and joyless days. What can be done to make the obsession go away and life to sparkle with bright colors again?
Minimize contact
There is no need to change your place of work or residence; it is enough to ensure that your meetings are as rare as possible, without close contact. Remove the man from your social network contacts and erase his phone number.
Take a break
If you are overtaken by unrequited love, what to do with it? Force your mind to switch to other thoughts. Find an interesting activity that will completely absorb you and leave no time to think about the object of your affection.
Lead an active life
Start going to a club, attend concerts, appear in crowded places more often. Perhaps very soon you will meet a gentleman worthy of your love, who will be able to reciprocate the reverent feeling.
Don't blame yourself
The fact that a man is not inflamed with passion is absolutely not your fault. This is just not your person. Think about the fact that he couldn’t make you happy, the constant struggle for his feelings would quickly get boring, and you would start thinking about a painless separation. Shake yourself up, let go of the obsession and get ready to meet true love.
Don't accumulate negativity
Many ladies ask: “I suffer from unrequited love, how can I get rid of my worries?” Experts recommend not accumulating negative emotions caused by an unpleasant situation, but finding a place to throw them out. Sport has a positive impact. Do fitness, join a gym, run in the fresh air. Sports exercises release huge amounts of endorphin, the hormone of happiness. After classes, your mood will improve and bad thoughts will disappear.
The problem of unrequited love will never lose its relevance, because the heart cannot tell who to love and who not. Every woman finds herself in a similar situation at least once in her life. To get out of the bonds of unrequited love, you need to gather all your inner strength and act without delay.
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Non-reciprocal love - how to deal with it?
Everyone has their own story; for some, an unrequited feeling is an inspiration, especially for those who are creative. History knows a lot of examples when creative individuals, out of mental anguish for the object of their passion, created talented works and masterpieces of world art.
This feeling is inspiring; sometimes people radically change their lives in order to be worthy of their beloved and, as a result, they grow above themselves. However, there are other examples with the opposite psychological effect. There are quite a few situations where unrequited love pushed a person onto the path of self-torture or even taking his own life. Psychologists are confident that mature individuals can draw basic conclusions from a situation and no longer make mistakes.
Girls who once fell in love like this have a large reserve of feelings, so when they meet the right person they can give him their love and receive the same from the man in return. If a person is optimistic, then even in unhappy love he will be able to see many advantages. For example, they will not stop loving him, they will not leave him for the sake of another person, his feelings will not be destroyed by everyday life.
Characteristics and features of unrequited love
Love without reciprocity can't help but upset. It devastates from the inside, suppresses the best desires, and contributes to the formation of suspicion. A distrustful attitude towards life, self-doubt and apathy appear. In some cases, you even have to resort to the help of a psychologist. Specialists regularly work with those who are confused, confused, and have lost their main life guidelines. Getting rid of unhappy love is not so easy. You have to make incredible efforts to cope with despair and hopelessness. It’s good if the person is fully aware of what is happening. Then there is a good chance to be rehabilitated.
Stages of unrequited love
- Euphoria stage. It flies by in a flash, as practice shows, it’s only a couple of weeks. A lover experiences all the emotions and feelings possible, he is filled with joy when he sees the object of his passion, he dreams of relationships and meetings under the moon.
- Here everyone has their own, for one it is a feeling of doom, for another it is hope for reciprocity. But in both cases there is a fear that the beloved will reject him, self-hatred, and psychological tossing. The complete opposite of the first stage. This can last a couple of months, in rare cases up to a year. Some women, by the way, do not reach this stage, but remain at the first stage, build castles in the air and live in them.
- This is the stage of torment and suffering. It is difficult to define a time interval here; love throws can last forever. Ordinary love, which is mutual, can pass if it has not gone through fire and ode, but here the tests themselves have meaning. If such a person does not seek psychological help, then recovery from this illness will be extremely painful.
The final stage of healing. This can take years to achieve, especially if the lover does not even think about asking for help.
Reasons for unrequited love
CONTENT:
Both internal and external factors can equally well lead to unrequited love. In the first group, psychologists include characterological qualities and unproductive patterns of behavior inherent in a loving person, which prevent him from building long-term relationships. External factors combine aspects independent of the individual, emanating directly from the object of sympathy. For example, the chosen one’s views on life or his concepts of beauty. Let's look at each group in more detail.
Internal factors that provoke one-sided love include:
Low self-esteem
Remember, if a person has a low level of self-esteem, then he almost certainly does not know how to show positive qualities to a potential partner. Awareness of oneself as a nonentity turns a person into a so-called “product on the bottom shelf”, no one notices him and no one is interested in him. Naturally, in such an atmosphere the birth of love is out of the question.
Selfishness and selfishness
If a person is subject to these two qualities, then one should not be surprised at his loneliness. Such people love only themselves, which means they simply do not have enough strength for others. They do not know how to feel the mood of the chosen one, they are indifferent to his life and desires. As a result, egoists slide into one-sided relationships, where they feel sincere sympathy only for their loved ones.
"Eternal Sacrifice"
This model of behavior assumes that no matter what life situation a person finds himself in, he will always suffer and suffer. The same applies to connections with another person. Experts are convinced that sometimes “eternal victims” deliberately fall in love with those who will never reciprocate their feelings. For example, pop stars or famous politicians. This gives them unlimited resources for moral torment, which are combined with passion for the object of their desire and manic pursuit of it.
Lack of skills for proper communication with members of the opposite sex. Such men often behave in a girl’s company as with friends in a garage: they make obscene jokes, laugh loudly and rudely tease her. As for women with this problem, at the first meeting they tell their boyfriend about their ex, describe to him in detail what cosmetics they use, and do not hesitate to let their partner in on the secrets of their hygiene. Do you think reciprocal love can arise from such behavior? Naturally not.
Grayness and dullness
Let's say that a certain person has no hobbies, he lives in the country, has no friends, never travels, and is afraid of new experiences like fire. How many chances do you think he has of arousing interest in himself as a person in a potential chosen one? According to the most daring estimates, somewhere around 1%. Understand that if you do not pay attention to your inner “I”, do not learn new things about yourself and the world around you every day, then people will never consider you as a partner for a relationship. This means that you either need to start changing yourself and your habits, or prepare for long-term loneliness and unrequited love.
The external factors of the problem described can confidently include the following:
- The potential partner does not even suspect that the person has sympathy for him. You can regularly hint that you want to see him as your chosen one, but who can guarantee that he understands these hints? Oddly enough, such a reason quite often becomes a “stumbling block” in building long-term relationships and is quite capable of transforming into unrequited love.
- Incompatibility of views. For example, you love noisy nightclubs and travel, but your lover is a quiet homebody who prefers to while away the evenings reading a book. In this case, he will probably regard you as an unsuccessful match for himself.
- Differences in social status. It's sad, but some people deliberately avoid building relationships with those who occupy a lower position in the social hierarchy.
- Subjective perception of beauty. Psychologists know that each individual perceives the beautiful and the ugly in this world in his own way. If relatives and friends constantly talk about your outstanding appearance, then it is not a fact that a potential partner will unconditionally join their ranks. Perhaps a man likes plump women, and you are slim. Or a woman prefers muscular guys, and you haven't been to the gym for a long time. But this can always be changed; the main thing is to understand what the object of desire really wants to see in you.
Important information! Another reason for one-sided love may be differences in intellectual development.
Let's say you received two higher educations, but your chosen one only has a diploma from a construction technical school. Or you regularly go to the theater and attend art exhibitions, but your partner prefers to “have a blast” among friends. Naturally, you will have few common topics to talk about. In addition, he will be afraid of your “cleverness.” It’s easier for him to find a partner of a person of the same intellectual level as him than to try to adapt to you.
Who has it more difficult - guys or girls?
There is a misconception that only girls fall in love unrequitedly. This is not true. Guys fall in love the same way, but they don’t talk about it left and right, they tend to keep their feelings to themselves. This is why men very rarely talk about their feelings; according to psychosomatics, they can have serious health problems, they can become alcoholics, and some even commit suicide. In this sense, it’s easier for women, they can talk through problems and this makes it easier. They receive support from the outside and experience everything faster.
Unrequited love in adolescence
“In love, someone always kisses, and someone only turns their cheek.” French proverb Almost every person has once fallen in love without an answer. It doesn’t matter at what age it happened - it’s always very exciting, but at the same time, a little sad. Falling in love is a wonderful feeling, it inspires a person, makes him do unthinkable things, pushes him to self-improvement. This is a positive side, but there is also a negative side. If the feeling is unrequited, it hurts. A person has to face the collapse of hopes, be disappointed, experience self-doubt, try to do everything to forget unrequited love. Everyone reacts differently to this.
It is known that when falling in love, certain hormones are released into a person’s blood, which give reactions that cause strong feelings. When this happens for the first time, a person feels everything especially acutely. This can be compared to a viral disease. The disease is difficult to tolerate only the first time, then immunity is developed, which makes it much easier to transfer the same virus.
This is roughly what happens with falling in love. The teenager experiences an indescribable range of feelings in this situation. Of course, it seems to him that this is forever, that they will certainly become a family and will always be together. Time passes, a series of events occur, and the teenager in love realizes that his feelings are not mutual. Everyone behaves differently here. 1. Some try to make friends with their loved one, maintain his good attitude and be content with little. Unrequited love can accompany a person throughout his life. 2. The second - go ahead, achieve reciprocity at all costs, without worrying about how to get rid of unrequited love. 3. Still others withdraw into themselves, become isolated, lose interest in life, constantly asking why there are unrequited feelings. To put it figuratively, the former continue to burn evenly, trying to preserve the hearth, while the latter flare up and burn everything in their path. Still others go out, and this is the most dangerous option, from a psychological point of view. Teenage depression often leaves its mark on the psyche. Your whole life will then pass in a state of passive depression. But the main danger here is suicide attempts. This happens quite often, especially nowadays.
As for the first and second scenarios, the best, of course, will be the first option. A person who realized that his feelings were not mutual, but decided to continue friendly communication with his lover, wins in all respects. He always has hope for something more, which means he does not give up feelings, he simply makes a decision: to wait. The second scenario will ultimately be a disappointment, because you won’t be nice by force.
A teenager, faced with an unrequited feeling, will experience a feeling of mental pain. His friends, loved ones and family should support him by talking to him about this, studying the question of how to stop suffering from unrequited love. The main thing to remember is that all feelings end sooner or later - this is human physiology; those chemicals that provoke falling in love cannot be released throughout life. It is important to understand and remember this.
Consequences of unreciprocated feelings
Here everything depends on the lover himself. If this is a strong personality, then the person soon realizes that he cannot achieve reciprocal feelings by force; he will draw a conclusion and try to somehow solve the problem. Get over this feeling and avoid this in the future.
The weaker ones will be very worried, experience a feeling of depression, even to extreme measures.
In this case, it is simply necessary to seek psychological help in order to avoid serious consequences for physical and mental health. Finding a way out here on your own will not be easy. It feels like a quagmire - the more you struggle, the deeper you get stuck.
What are the dangers of unrequited feelings?
At the same time, many people do not find the strength to give up their own suffering. At first, they simply experience their emotions, and then they get used to the role of the victim and already get their own special “high” from such destructive feelings. Those with weak personalities completely focus their lives on an unattainable chosen one, turning every minute of it into moments of memories or making unrealistic plans for a joint idyll and suffering from unrequited love. Many of these completely forget about their own interests, they may begin to look for ways to forget love in alcohol or drugs They rarely appear in companies, and if they do, they stay there only on condition that they are listened to and empathized with. Any attempts to open their eyes and reach their minds end in quarrels and alienation. Next comes depression, from which it is even more difficult to get out of it on your own. There are also frequent cases of suicide due to unrequited love, especially in adolescence and young adulthood.
How long does unrequited love last?
The lifespan of love is 3 years, but not when we are talking about unrequited love. Sometimes people carry this feeling throughout their lives. A person can arrange his life, create a good family, have children, thinking about his beloved person and after many years he will experience pain. The feeling passes differently for everyone, some need a couple of months, others suffer for years. A lot depends on the personality, upbringing, and environment. Only someone who has once been in a similar position can understand what it is like and how difficult it is to get out of this situation.
Love from a scientific point of view - a cold look at feelings
People with a pragmatic character will be able to cope most easily with a situation where unrequited love strikes. It will be enough for them to look at all these concepts of “love and dislike” from the point of view of science. And there, by the way, everything is completely simple, explainable and prosaic: “The feeling of love is a unique chain of biochemical reactions that occur in our brain, provoking the activation of certain hormones: endorphin, oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin.” Dopamine, which dominates at the first stage of falling in love and the peak of passion, fully explains the feeling of euphoria that is associated with all sensations of love, both mutual and unrequited. Next, those hormones will prevail that will convey the characteristics of your relationship: a quiet and calm life with your loved one will lead to an increase in oxytocin, and scandals and misunderstandings will lead to an increase in cortisol.
If you no longer have the strength to fight an unrequited feeling on your own
You need to realize that unreciprocated love is not so scary. This is a lesson from the universe, you need to accept it and derive some benefit from it. Under no circumstances should you leave everything to chance, because problems will only grow. It is necessary to recover from illusions, vain hopes, suffering and torment. It’s great if there is someone nearby who can help you, especially if it’s a qualified psychologist or a loved one who understands you. This is especially important when it comes to young people whose psyche has not yet been fully formed.
- We need to find the flaws. Your love object, like any person, is not ideal at all, find its flaws and stop idealizing it. Once you begin to notice these shortcomings, the feeling will begin to weaken.
- Search for reasons. If you don’t get a person out of your head for a long time, you need to understand why this is happening. This is probably some kind of psychological program that haunts you in life. Here you already need to understand yourself, because there is a great chance in the future to simply switch to another person.
- Take up all your free time. Get involved in something, start going dancing or playing sports. Do anything, just distract yourself from your thoughts about your lover, so that you simply have no strength or energy left for anything else. Perhaps this way you will find another person whose feelings will be mutual.
- You need to make lemonade from ordinary lemon, Dale Carnegie taught this. Benefit from non-reciprocal feelings for yourself. This method works especially well for creative people. On a wave of emotional excitement, you can create beautiful works of art. This method will also be useful for those who have long wanted to change, because mutual love is not a strong motivator for self-growth; work in this direction, everything will definitely work out.
Accept and love yourself. All psychology experts talk about this all the time. You need to learn to love yourself first, and then others. If you love yourself, you will not allow yourself to be manipulated and you will not humiliate yourself in front of others. The norm is a healthy relationship between two people where there is respect for each other.
What to do if you love, but you are not there
Many people believe that unrequited love only brings negative experiences, leaving bitterness and tears. If you have already done everything possible to attract the attention of your chosen one, but in return you do not get what you want, then try to distract yourself from the object of sympathy and realize that you can benefit.
The benefits of unrequited love
This idea may seem absurd and clichéd at first, but you can actually benefit from what is happening. Many people know the common expression that “if fate threw a sour lemon, then you need to make lemonade from it.”
If you have not already achieved reciprocity, then think about the positive aspects of the condition:
- Learning perseverance and willpower
. Non-reciprocal love builds character well. We have to learn endurance and take care even in difficult conditions of rejection. - Let's learn to appreciate
. Faced with non-reciprocal love, we learn to appreciate any signs of attention from a loved one. Usually in the situation under discussion there is little attention, it is especially valuable and is reproduced in memory more than once. When we meet mutual love in the future, we do not treat it as something natural - it becomes even more beautiful than it would have been before unrequited love. - Let's become more attractive
. This is what happens more often. Having failed to arouse the proper interest in the person we like, we try to change ourselves, and, as a rule, these changes happen for the better. Men usually become more interested in sports, and often turn their new hobby into a good habit. Women experiment more often with their appearance, begin to take care of themselves more carefully, and the results are not long in coming. - Let's become more inventive
. Having fallen in unrequited love, many people begin to think about how to conquer their beloved (beloved), and these thoughts motivate them to take extraordinary and memorable actions. It is possible that the object of adoration will not appreciate the effort, but in the process of thinking about various surprises, we draw many interesting ideas from various sources, and they may be useful in the future. - Let's become more attentive
. This phenomenon also has a logical explanation. Mindfulness develops in several directions. Firstly, we begin to notice a person’s desires and hobbies in order to match them. Secondly, we become more attentive to his surroundings, trying to understand which people arouse his interest. - Let's learn to be more proactive
. Non-reciprocal love often adds initiative and perseverance to a character. If before we did not strive to manifest it, or simply did not know how, in such a situation everything changes. Since a person who is not interested in us does not show himself in any way, we have to do this, simultaneously discovering new previously unknown facets in ourselves. - We take care of other people's feelings
. Of course, after experiencing unrequited love, some begin to take revenge on others, breaking their hearts and forcing them to go through various levels of suffering. Most people, on the contrary, learn tolerance, kindness and compassion. How does this manifest itself? Often, when trying to break through the wall of someone else’s indifference, we remember how we demonstrated coldness to someone else’s expression of feelings. Having realized what this person was experiencing, we strive to apologize and show attention - something that we were not able to give before. And in the future, we will become more tolerant of other people’s manifestations of love and will not allow ourselves to be callously ignored.
Let us summarize the points listed above: having experienced unreciprocated love, we learn many useful lessons for ourselves and discover important facets that would have remained in the shadows if not for the encounter with indifference. The palette of feelings becomes wider, and imagination develops. We gain important experience in overcoming various internal barriers, fears, insecurities and complexes. Having learned these lessons, you should not position yourself as a “victim” of unrequited love.
Adviсe
The problem exists, but it can be dealt . Here are some tips from psychologists on how to survive unrequited love.
- Recognize the problem.
- Learn to control thoughts and actions.
- Get rid of accumulated emotions. You can cry, scream, talk to loved ones.
- Try to distract yourself, remember your dream, and make it come true.
- Don't withdraw into yourself, don't be alone.
- Objectively evaluate the object of your desire. All people have flaws.
- Love yourself.
