You enthusiastically invest in a relationship with your loved one, looking for something to please him, protecting him from difficulties and conflicts, but in return you get tolerance and indifference at best, neglect and depreciation at worst. How to get out of the trap of one-sided love? Psychologist Jill Weber explains.
A connection in which we do not feel reciprocated can have dramatic consequences for our mental and even physical health. Entering into such a union, we cannot feel emotionally safe. We work tirelessly to make our relationships what they may never be.
This conflict leads to stress, and stress hormones «excite» the body, causing side effects: anxiety, sleep problems, increased excitability and irritability. One-way relationships are hugely expensive—and yet they often last much longer than they should.
Think about your love affair: is it mutual? If not, begin to overcome the pattern by doing the analytic work described below.
20 Signs Your Relationship Is One-Way
1. You never feel safe in them.
2. You constantly puzzle over the true motives of your partner’s behavior.
3. You constantly feel like you’re missing something.
4. After talking with a partner, you feel empty and exhausted.
5. You are trying to develop relationships, to make them deeper, but to no avail.
6. You don’t share your true feelings with your partner.
7. You do all the work of maintaining the relationship.
8. You feel like you’ve already invested so much in this relationship that you just can’t leave.
9. You feel like your relationship is like a house of cards.
10. You are afraid to upset your partner or cause conflict.
11. Your self-esteem depends on how strong this relationship is.
12. You don’t feel that your partner knows and understands you well.
13. You make excuses for your partner.
14. You are satisfied with brief moments of togetherness, although you strive for greater intimacy.
15. You don’t know exactly when you’ll see each other again or be able to talk, and it worries you.
16. All your attention is focused on the dynamics of your relationship, and therefore you cannot think about other areas of your life and be fully present in them.
17. You enjoy moments of communication with a partner, but after parting, you feel lonely and abandoned.
18. You are not growing as a person.
19. You are not sincere with your partner because the main thing for you is that he or she is happy with you.
20. If you express your opinion, which is different from the point of view of a partner, he turns away from you, and you feel that all the problems in the relationship are only because of you.
If you recognize yourself in more situations than you would like, start breaking the pattern. To do this, ask yourself the following questions (and be honest with yourself):
- How long/often have you been repeating this one-way relationship pattern?
- Was it in your childhood that you loved your parents, but one of them did not reciprocate?
- Can you imagine a relationship where your needs are met? How would you feel in them?
- What makes you work so hard on this relationship and keeps you from moving towards a more emotionally comfortable union?
- If your goal is to feel secure, consider if there is another way to satisfy that need.
- If you were to break that connection, what would be interesting and meaningful to fill the vacuum?
- Does a one-sided relationship indicate that you don’t have enough self-esteem? Do you choose friends and partners who keep you negative about yourself?
- Is it possible to say that you are working in vain, losing your vitality and not getting much return?
- What could give you more positive emotions and energy than this relationship?
- Are you able to consciously track the moments when you are overworked in order to stop, step back and let go?
Getting out of a one-sided relationship is not easy, but it is possible. The first step is to realize that you are in them. The next is to look for new opportunities to satisfy your needs and feel good regardless of this partner.
About the Author: Jill P. Weber is a clinical psychologist, relationship expert, and author of non-fiction books on relationship psychology, including Sex Without Intimacy: Why Women Agree to One-Way Relationships.