Staff Writer – Katrin Callender
The thing about unrequited love that makes it seem especially hard to endure, is the fact that the party in love knows that they have, or are willing to give so much love yet nothing they do seems to be able to guarantee its return.
Whether the object of our love is committed to or pining for someone else, or otherwise unable to see or return our love- or worse, unwilling to do so- we suffer doubly as likely wrangle with feelings of rejection and also because loving another often drains us of our energies anyway and we do not necessarily stop loving even when it is clear that our feelings are not returned.
I want the kind of love that is returned of course, but more than that, I want the kind of love that is worth the time and effort I will put into it. We can be left so broken by our past experiences of love that we settle for any expression of love- even when our gut instincts insist that something is amiss.
Sometimes we think that a flirt is more than a flirt- that there is some attraction or interest and that if we tap into it we can make a casual relationship evolve into something more serious. Why not? If the seed exists, all we need do is water it until it blossoms right? Yet, efforts to do this can result in drowning the relationship instead- leaving us to grieve once more.
Sometimes a person comes along and more than being a flirt, this one is open to a relationship. In our bruised state we may rush or force them into a relationship or pressure them until they believe that their options are to concede which may cause a degree of resentment- or leave. In either case, we may be hurt again. And the cycle continues.
Photo courtesy sameoldnewstuff.blogspot.com
Worst of all, we may find that after having our hearts broken, we close them off from love believing that we can protect ourselves this way. Then a genuine opportunity for love passes our way and we either miss it or reject it because we are afraid of being hurt again or we are just too tired of failing at love.
I think that the key to having successful relationships is to pace yourself. If we decide that we want to be in a loving relationship, whether or not we have been burned in the past, we need to do a bit of work. We need to think about who we are, what we believe and what we want. We need to do this to be fair to the other party and to ourselves as well.
We should not rush into a relationship for any reason- not because we are expected to; or because all our friends and families are in relationships; and not because we fear that if we don’t do it now, it will never happen for us.
As humans, healing is critical to our development and completing our development is critical to our maintaining healthy relationships. In life, many things happen before their time, but the best occurrences are usually right on time- delivered with care and received with gratitude!
