I’ve written about love many times, particularly in respect to recognising that we often profess to love others unconditionally without loving ourselves, we often mistake the pain we feel in our relationships as a measure of how much we must love the other person, and how we project our love onto others expecting how we feel to be reflected back.
When guest poster Trish shared her painful experience and sobering healing advice with readers last week after being let down by the lies and coldness of a disrespectful Mr Unavailable who kept her guessing each year about whether they’d spend Christmas together whilst inviting the ex wife and ex girlfriend around, one line from commenter AJ jumped out at me:
“I couldn’t fathom the notion of this being intentional surely the man I love wouldn’t treat me this way.”
I always thought that when I fell in love, I’d be on cloud nine, skipping through fields (OK not really) but feeling swept up in a tide of reciprocated feelings. Instead, the first boy I fell in love with barely acknowledged my existence, and the subsequent (mostly assclowns and Mr Unavailables) that I fell for (or at least thought I did) had me quickly languishing in a world of mixed signals and ambiguity, where often I would be uninterested, they’d chase me, I’d ‘give in’ and get swept up in all their big declarations and gestures, only for the tables to get turned on me.
Our feelings are not always reciprocated.
It’s sh*t, it hurts, and it feels like an injustice that the object of your affections doesn’t feel the same, but feeling like you love someone doesn’t land the other person with obligations or an IOU.
It’s not ‘I’m crazy about you so you must be crazy about me too’ – You’re two separate entities.
The reality is that if you’re attracted to each other and it goes beyond superficial stuff, there is strong character, shared values, and a respect for boundaries with decent relationship habits, along with love, trust, and care, you can stand a decent chance.
But you both need to want it, feel it, respect it, need it, with both of your feet in.
What you want, need, expect, and feel may not be what they want, need, expect, and feel.
A key mistake that we can make in our relationships and dalliances with men is to become so lost in our own feelings for them that we lose sight of reality and forget to sanity check whether the other party is on the same page.
We feel so in love and see such wonderful things that we assume that that they should feel that way and see the same things.
For a start, it’s unrealistic to expect someone to act, feel, need, want, and expect the way that you do as it’s an unrealistic expectation of a ‘soulmate’ and will no doubt create friction when they stop being or doing these things.
It’s also important to remind ourselves that they may not want or even ‘need’ your love and may perceive you as throwing your love at them or even ramming it down their throat.
When your feelings become all encompassing, you lose sight of reality and because you believe that all you want is to be loved and how better and different your life will be as a result of it, you assume that surely with you telling the other person that you love them and trying to be and do everything for them, that surely they’ll reciprocate your feelings right? Wrong…
You cannot always judge people based on your own actions, especially if you don’t cross reference the reality of their actions against what you believe or know that you would do.
I’ve had so many women say to me stuff like ‘I would never treat someone like that!’ or ‘I know that if I were behaving that way, I’d want someone to tell me the error of my ways’ or ‘I know that my feelings would be hurt if someone called me on something so I feel like I should be understanding’.
You may never do a lot of things but that doesn’t mean that others won’t.
If you have poor love habits, it’s time to realise that you cannot judge people on those merits and that you need to take off your rosetinted glasses because people will and are taking advantage of you.
There’s no point languishing in disbelief as someone is actually doing or being something and saying ‘But I wouldn’t…’
If you know that you wouldn’t do it and they are doing it, this is a major sign in itself that something is wrong and it’s likely to be a crossing of your boundaries.
In trying to fill voids and get validated about specific things, many of you will find yourselves having very specific ideas about how you think you’ll feel and what will happen and when you become involved with someone, you’ll pursue those feelings without sanity checking whether you actually want this person, whether they’re ‘right’ for you, giving you what you need, respecting your boundaries etc.
You have to be careful of going out there and throwing your love at people in the hope of getting it reflected back to you.
If you’re not stepping out with a healthy setup of personal love, you’ll gravitate to people that reflect the negatives that you believe about yourself, love, and relationships.
If you don’t keep it real and ensure that your feelings are grounded in reality with a person who is acting with love, trust, care, and respect, you’ll be so immersed in the glow of your feelings that you’ll believe that it affects the other persons ability to treat you badly.
Hard as it may be to hear, telling someone you loved them has never stopped them from behaving as they want to. People do lie and even though they have no long term intentions, they can use you if it suits their short or medium term gain.
If they don’t have their two feet in the relationship you think you’re in with them, and they don’t value you or your feelings, respect you, and feel true love or care, they’ll do whatever the hell they want to do and think that you must have little regard for yourself if you’re acting like a person in a loving relationship when they have shown that they are not what you think they are.
By pursuing validation and being so eager to feel loved, often without true regard for the quality of man or relationship, we ride with our pattern, get the few cues that we need, and then run with our feelings, often without checking to see if the other person is on board.
The key is not to decide that you can’t trust anyone because that’s more of a reflection of the fact that you can’t trust yourself.
Learn to love yourself unconditionally and be a person who has relationships with boundaries and keeps themselves in enough of a reality to recognise red flags and make judgement calls.
Many of the women I’ve corresponded with realised that being empowered and learning how to trust themselves came from taking action and standing by decisions, instead of being immobilised by helplessness and second guessing themselves.
Just like when I talked about future fakers yesterday, if you don’t keep it real and get lost in your own feelings, not only will your relationship be an illusion but you won’t even be going out with them – you’ll be going out with projections of what’s in your head.
You have to be the security guard of your own relationship. If you don’t trust yourself, your intuition and your instincts because you’re too busy living in lala land, you’ll be the security guard that’s having crimes taking place underneath your nose, either because you’re falling asleep on the job or you’re looking elsewhere.
I remember in the movie ‘Boomerang’ when Halle Berry’s character says ‘Love should have brought your ass home last night’, or something to that effect, after Eddie’s character has slept with Robin Given’s behind her back.
So-called love on its own is not enough and doesn’t change people, especially those who have no impetus or desire to change and who aren’t in the relationship in the way that you are. Yes love should have brought his ass home that night, but if he’d had any respect for her or himself, he would have done. Love is a wonderful thing but you’ll find yourself with a better chance of it if you stop being attracted to men (or women) who are all talk, very little action, and who offer the least likely prospects for commitment as it’s like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and wondering why it’s all busted up.
Particularly at this time of year where you might be thinking ‘I know that if I was in love, I’d want to spend every moment with them over Christmas/the holidays’ or ‘I know that if I hadn’t heard from him for several months, I’d want to hear from them now’ or ‘If I don’t call/text/email/send a card to him or his mum then he’ll think I’m not interested because that’s what I’d think’, hold that thought and step back for a moment.
Is this based on you? Or is this based on the real him? Sanity check whatever you’re thinking against their past behaviour to get some real perspective.
At the end of the day, if you act with love, care, respect, and trust, and you get something entirely different, you’re not on the same page. If you act with love towards yourself, you’re likely to discover that you don’t feel the ‘love’ you thought you did for them.
Remember what I’ve said before – If loving someone means that I can’t love myself and have to sideline me and disrespect my own boundaries, I’ll take loving myself.
It’s also better to have loved and lost than to have loved someone and persisted in the illusion, never accepting the reality and giving yourself a chance to opt out and live and love.
Your thoughts?
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Strangely enough I was just thinking last night. Do I send a card to his family whom I have a friendship with? He still lives at home so that makes it awkward. Does that mean I’ll have to put his name on the card? Which I don’t want to do, will it look bad if I dont? I got a card from his mum, will it be rude if I don’t send one back?
Suddenly I realised I was wasting fair to much energy on it/thinking about it. Instead I’ve opted to not send anything except for a txt to his mum to say thank you for the card. Since doing the ncr I’ve also had to lose the contact with the family. Luckily the family understand completly. It was hard for me to do because his mum really helped me a lot through the breakup. But I new if I really wanted tooce on then I had to let go of it all. Make sure that anything to do with him would not be in my life or get a foot in to hurt me again.
I don’t feel bad at all about not sending anything at Xmas, it’s to hard and messy and I don’t want hard and messy anymore.
Take care 🙂
“If loving someone means that I can’t love myself and have to sideline me and disrespect my own boundaries, I’ll take loving myself.”
This really spoke to me because this is where I finally am, thanks to this website. I am ready to love and respect myself and get the love and intimacy that I deserve, not the crumbs I have been accepting my whole adult life! I now know that it feels better to have the momentary loneliness of being alone which really does pass quickly rather than the loneliness and pain that are constant and intense while in a relationship w/ EUM/Assclown.
I am almost 2 mos. NC and he has tried to email me twice…both of which I immediately ignored and deleted. I finally get it that he never cared about me or any other girl he has been with…he just wants what he wants in the moment and is cruel and careless with women’s feelings.
And you are right – this Assclown that I was SO in love with, was me taking the few good parts of him and creating this fictional character – it wasn’t him at all. Those love feelings are fading fast, I barely feel them anymore. I am now focused on loving me, not spending all my energy loving someone who can never reciprocate.
Trinity- I completely understand. I was very close with my ex’s family; they really wanted me to become a permanent part of theirs. No longer being a part of their family has been one of the hardest things to get over. His mom told me one time “I love him, he’s my son, but he’s an a**hole.” Even his family recognizes his behavior! It’s another display of selffishness that EUM’s don’t even care enough about the hurt they’re causing their family members by their actions.
On another note: is it horrible to fantasize that my EUM will one-day get married, have kids, get divorced and spend the rest of his life completely unavailable/alone and never know how it feels to truly love and be loved? I know I’m still going through the healing phase and I’m not supposed to wish “ill” on others…
Nevkay-I can relate with you,I got from the mother of my ex once:”He is my son and I love him but sometimes I dont like him.He can be very selfish and hurtfull” and when I emailed her after the break up she said “You deserve someone that treats you better than my son did”.I think if their own mother(the one that knows him better than anybody else) is saying that,that says a lot about how they realy are.
I wonder how much all this has to do with biological causes, that so many women love unconditionally, after the first initial bonding. Like with thier children, no matter what they do, family is still loved unconditionally for most people, especially women. And somehow this is transferred to men who take advantage and don’t deserve it. Maybe it’s misplaced maternal instincts.
Being the fall back girl for 2yrs I can relate. I was so concerned about making sure he knew how I felt about him that I forgot how I felt about myself. He lied and cheated on me and I was stupid enough to stick around for a couple of years hoping, wishing, praying he’d come back. I put my pain and sadness and most importantly my healing on the back burner and put on a brave face. I humiliated myself and did things I’m not proud of all in the name of “LOVE”. Sad part is that it wasn’t self love.
We were co-workers and friends long before we were lovers and I’ll never forget what another co-worker once told me “You’re a better friend to him then he’ll ever be to you”. Wish I would of listened might of saved alot of heartache. But as we all know love is blind and deaf in my case, the heart wants what the heart wants. Women do tend to love unconditionally, that’s what makes us great human beings but sadly so many men use it to not only to their advantage but use it against us to gain the advantage.
NML you’re so right when you said “If you act with love towards yourself, you’re likely to discover that you don’t feel the ‘love’ you thought you did for them”. Thanks for those words, today was a tough one for me I think because the holidays are nearing and we all tend to get a little sentimental at this time.
Good friends and family that’s what the holidays are really about. I’m going to enjoy those around me who I know care about me and are genuinely concerned about my welfare and do my best to let them all know how grateful I am for their love.
I have to agree with polite-impolite that it may be misplaced maternal instincts where we all want to “mother” these a**holes, in hope that they will become better individuals. I’m currently so hopeless in my rs with my assclown, and the only time I see reality is when I am reading this site and referencing his bad behaviour. And the title of this post really spoke to me. What I don’t get is, I’m constantly asking him what HE was out of the rs and where he sees it going, and his claim is always “I want all the same things honey”. Why can’t they just be honest with their feelings?
I loved myself before I met him, but they have a way of reducing a strong–independent woman into a weak sniveling person. My mistake was that I gave everything to him and ended up losing myself in the relationship. When it was over, I crashed. I will never do that again, because I won’t allow someone to treat me that way. I’m learning how to love myself again and it’s not easy, when the EUM scrambled your mind/emotions…but you have to come to the realization of what they really are. I didn’t want to do that. There’s a certain comfort in believing that if they loved you, they wouldn’t do the things they’re doing and you make excuses for them based on their manipulation of you. I still hurt, but not like I did. The best thing I did was leave him alone and I was never able to do that for very long. I’m so glad I found this site.
Hey NML, your blog is a gift that I open every morning.
Thank you!
i just need to ask something, is it that now his family is such a huge issue because, smehow in some sucontious way you keep contact with them because you have a need to keep having somebody/something that loves you. i mean .
I love how after reading one of your posts that little light bulb flashes on in my brain and I think, “Duh! How could I have not seen how desperate I acted!?” And another revelation I had..I’m only on this site due to my first heartbreak in 38 years but the more I read the more I realize this has been one long continuous pattern dating back to my first boyfriend..two marriages..and a long engagement. My biggest complaint? “Why do I end up doing all the relationship work?” (light bulb flashing bright right about now) These past two months have been nothing less than debilitating but I’ve made more progress in the past few days than I could have ever imagined. I finally got off the couch a few weeks ago, quit smoking, walked outside one morning and ran (like Forest Gump) and I’ve been running everyday ever since. I read this site every evening – what I once needed to “get through it” but now I’m understanding a helluva lot more about me than I ever imagined. I’d be the first to point fingers at the assclown who “did this to me” but in the end I was more of an assclown for putting up with it. I have been feeling so pissed off for being rejected..after all WHO in their right mind could reject ME!?? Then I had an epiphany moment..these guys from my past that I left because I’d finally had enough all had something in common – they all came running back after I threw in the towel and bailed but by then I had no interest. I always chalked it up as a cat and mouse game but now it makes sense. I wasnt about to put up with crap anymore. An unconcious boundery a little too late? Before I came to this site I didnt think I needed any because – hey…I was gonna love him enough for the both of us damnit! And truth be known, when I joined this site, I was going to prove this ridiculous No Contact concept to be inaccurate as my darling just needed a bit of space until he realized how much I love him then I would be back here to say that he came to my door and we rode off on his horse into the land of rainbows and unicorns. Well ladies, let me tell ya’…if he ever showed up on my doorstep I’d send him packing on the ass he rode in on. Things keep surfacing that he said during our “relationship” that I must have puposely ignored in my drunken love for him. Things like “aw, you’re so desperate” or “I hate that hair colour” or “why do you stare at me with that dumb look?” (he was just tired from working so hard and needed MORE love ya’ know) If I wasn’t busy floating away on cloud 9 I would have ended it after the first comment, although if I were grounded in reality, that first comment would have never been spoken. This is how much of a contrast there is in my thinking now compared to before and I find it a blessing that for once in my life I dont feel lonely being alone.
I too have an ex family in law who tell me I deserve someone better. We were together for 15 years with two beautiful children together. I always made excuses for his behaviour and put it down to his difficulty in really expressing how he felt about me. After all he bought me beautiful things, even if he didn’t have the time to actually spend with me. I have been no contact for just under two months and it is the hardest thing to do ever. But I am no longer under the delusion that he will change his ways and see the light. I deserve much better and I have started to realise that I have to love myself first and foremost and then I won’t make such bad choices. I am also doing this for the sake of my children so they don’t grow up and either behave or excuse in the same way as their father.
I think you are a genuis in the way you put things so clearly. Over the past few years I have been getting healthier in all aspects; yet reading your posts every so often always empowers me and keeps me on track!
I told my EUM that I loved him and he responded that those were major words and that I was saying them too easily. I snapped back that he was speaking for himself and that he was nobody to tell me how to feel or when it was the right time to express my feelings. I told him the best he could do if he could not be grateful for my expression of love was to shut his trap. I regret not leaving him on the spot. Of course, in our time together, he never told me he loved me. He could not even bring himself to say the word “love.” He did say he adored me, which I always thought felt pathetically short. I finally got tired of him and of the relationship not moving forward and left him. I realized he just did not know what love is and was uncapable of loving anybody but himself. Now, I can’t forgive myself for giving my precious heart to such a pathetic loser. He still calls me and emails him but I ignore him. He seems to enjoy getting the cold sholder because he keeps coming back for more. Now, I’m working on forgiving myself for giving so much to somebody who did not know how to receive and who was only capable of giving so little.
Very very VERY true, NML.
This should be my daily bible I carry around and plaster to my forehead when I start getting emotionally interested in someone.
HIS reality, his needs, his wants, his feelings – those are the things that I need to see thorugh his actions and his words are on the SAME PAGE as mine consistently.
If they aren’t, I’m fantasizing and setting myself up to be hurt – by my own unrealistic expectations or habit patterns with an EUM.
It’s really all about staying CONSCIOUS and CLEAR about what I want versus what I’m getting.
All I can say is Amen!! thx NML!
Thank you! Thank you! I’ve finally done it, I’ve cut ties with him and I’ve been feeling so anxious about doing it, but now that it’s done, I feel so much better. This guy kept telling me that he wanted to be close and he wanted to spend time with me and he wanted what I wanted, but those feelings waned over several years and he wasn’t giving me anything near the end! I kept holding on to how he acted in the past and I couldn’t believe how badly he began to act in the last several months. I do love myself too much to continue to allow it, so I’ve cut the ties and it feels good. Now, hopefully I’ll remember all this when I have the urge to call or e-mail me in a few days….
Keep your fingers crossed for me!
I’m intelligent…I understand everything you’ve written and I feel the same as many, if not all, of these women. So why do I secretly hope he’ll come back and start this all over again??!! (like he always does). There are too many factors to consider: i’m married…he’s dying of cancer…we’re both screwed. Should I learn to accept this, turn my back and walk away??? NC for 1 mth and i’m wondering if he’s lonely…missing me…or even dead. Please help, because I’m feeling the urge to go running back for more heartache.
….am i being selfish if i’m worried about my own feelings when he’s the one dying? I’m dizzy from all this uncertainty…unconscious thinking, rambling if you will…he calls it waffling. Obviously, I’m not the type to stick to my decisions and he has sensed that too. What if it turns out that I’M the assclown? Dreamer v’s realist. We seem to exchange roles every so often. I know this is all very vague..but tell me what are your impressions from all of this…anyone?
“The key is not to decide that you can’t trust anyone because that’s more of a reflection of the fact that you can’t trust yourself.”
That’s stunningly deep, insightful and thought provoking. It’s got me thinking about a link between it and the articles on seeking validation from ACs.
For me these are the two key parts to just kicking them out of your mind …
a) understanding why you are keeping their memory alive (the validation articles address this
b) letting yourself off the need to “figure it/and them” all out in order to move on (the trust statement above is key to this)
For me personally if I can answer both of these (and this article has helped) then I think I can close the drawer and move on.
I’m not quite there yet but I’m quite excited at the moment because I can see that the answers to my questions are in me alone and nothing to do with them … therefore, in theory, I just don’t need them around (or in my mind) in order to answer the questions.
Hopefully that’s a breakthough (for me) of sorts …
🙂
Your website and articles are sooo amazing! You say things exactly as I need to hear them, at the time I need to hear them. I agree, you are a genuis in the way you put things so clearly.
I’m slowly, but surely learning to put myself first, set up boundaries and not live in la la land for nearly as long as I used to. I’m trying to learn to love myself first and have the healthy life AND love that I deserve. TY!!
I am an older women and have survived and been delivered from a number of bad relationships and scary people both men and some women, both Family and Friends. Personally, I have “no regrets” because I learned something about damaged men and damaged women including (me.) I am not excusing them or myself, I am recognizing the wounded spirits that we are if we come from dysfunctional or painful past life events. I believe some try, but didn’t learn or know how to change. ( Many have undiagnosed mental conditions as well). The key for me is to find some forgiveness for myself and them and find a better resting place that nurturers growth, understanding and love, as NML is so wisely teaching on this site, heal yourself and love yourself, the uniquely beautiful being you are. Be Blessed!!!
This is a wonderful article and website in whole. Thank you so much. It really hits home. Please keep up the good work.