Unrequited love: an epic test of your self love

Loving someone who doesn’t love you back is the most painful thing. You see the good in them, the potential for something great between the two of you but there’s always this catch. The catch is they don’t like you. It’s a super harsh reality to face but one you must look at otherwise you end up constantly feeling less, hoping, and praying for a lost cause.

Quite possibly the most insidious thing is loving someone who loves the idea of you, someone who will keep you around in their lives pretending as you matter by giving you just enough truth for you to be convinced enough that they care. But there is always that word ‘enough’ that exists. Deep into your core, you know that love wouldn’t be convincing enough, good enough, fun enough it simply would be convincing, good, and fun. When I hear the word ‘enough’ I always think of less. It always reminds me that it will never be great. The sad thing is in a bid to guard our hearts against more pain we say ‘yes’ to the ‘enough’ and keep investing time, money, effort into a dead end, a person who has no intention of loving us, a person who is simply awakening our emotions so they can feel better for a while without any intention of actually loving us.

There have been stacks of self-help books on the topic and I understand why. If you doubt your ability to find the right person you will try and convince your mind that ‘enough’ is good even when your heart knows better. Your friends and loved ones will try and protect you by warning you about what they see but you’ll still do what you think is best for yourself, you’ll hide the truth. The truth that you are painfully unhappy and you got hooked on hope because you were afraid you couldn’t trust your intuition again for the relationship decisions you made or because you feared not finding someone who would genuinely be great. The weirdest thing is that this convincing, tricking, mind fucking of yourself is far more painful than putting yourself out there for dates, meeting new people, and committing to something far greater than a fling. It’s more painful because there is no end to the pain whereas at least when you take the courage to jump back into the dating pool you have the opportunity of experiencing something great.

Quite possibly the most disturbing thing of all in these situations is when you have gone so far into the depths of denial about who that person is who you love that you have decided for yourself that not being happy is some sort of satisfactory fate. It’s the biggest bullshit of all. You cannot enter into a relationship with someone who is good enough, fun enough, convincing enough, and hope to be blissfully happy.

Some people do it, some people enter into those relationships convincing themselves that ‘this is it’ and they argue with their partner continuously when the argument is really against themselves ‘why am I letting you be a part of my life when you do not love me?’ I believe this has happened so many times it is why people say things like ‘I hate dating,’ ‘dating sucks,’ ‘I can’t be bothered trying there isn’t anyone decent out there.’ These are all mammoth lies we tell ourselves to deal with the reality that hurts- we have wasted time on someone who had no intention of caring about us, supporting us, building a life with us, rather someone who intended to use us to build a self-love level they can’t find a way to fill for themselves.

No one can love you when they do not love themselves. They can wear masks, oh hell can they wear masks, but at the end of the day if a person is not capable of loving who they are they will find others to fill their need every single time. This way they can avoid dealing with themselves, holding themselves accountable when they won’t be honest when they say empty words when they won’t commit when they refuse to be transparent.

Self-love is not easy, its difficult. It takes getting to know who you are right to your core, it takes looking at your mistakes in life and being able to accept that they are yours and you were responsible. It means holding accountability when people left your life because you didn’t treat them well, it’s looking at those god damn ugly parts of yourself and starting with the question, ‘how do I not hate that about me?’ and coming to a point where you can talk to someone and share who you are with freedom of knowing that you are not perfect but you are real, authentic, honest and god damn brave.

Anything less isn’t good enough. Anything less won’t satisfy you. Anything less will only rob you of happiness and health. Anything less is 100% absolutely what you do not deserve. Find someone who loves themselves first, you’ll end up with a person who actually has the capacity to love, someone who can give their whole self to you because they actually are a whole person.

For those men or women who have been mistreated by those who sought to open their hearts only to play with them I say to you:

You can trust your intuition. You can love it again. Don’t let someone who never intended to love you have more power over you by robbing your confidence to date again. Get out there and show off your awesome self. Date, love, marry that person who knows who they are, what they want, and isn’t afraid to go after it.

For those who aren’t sure still and they are trying to convince themselves that their ‘partner/friend/buddy/boyfriend/girlfriend’ is ok ask yourself this:

Do you deserve to wait? Do you feel loved when someone can’t make up their mind? Do you feel sexy and appreciated by someone who doesn’t go after what they want, who is too afraid to communicate their feelings?

To all of you reading this blog, I pray that you’ll love yourself a little more, be kinder to yourself for having a heart and choosing to be vulnerable, you are already way ahead of those who hide. Appreciate yourself, love, who you are, and promise yourself that you’ll move on when anyone makes you feel ‘good enough.’

Much love,

Julia xo