You can't be cute: why love can't be earned
Relations / / December 30, 2020
Why We Believe Love Can Be Made
Romantic cliches say: if you really love, you have to fight for this feeling, even if the person does not reciprocate. The methods can be very different. For example, come to the object of adoration and sing serenades. Call at night and breathe into the tube. Eliminate competitors. Well, or just too actively to care. In romantic stories, everything ends well: a person will definitely change his mind and fall in love in return. That is why it seems that in reality the happy ending will not keep itself waiting long, if you try hard enough.
But cultural attitudes are not to blame for this illusion. For many, this belief is taken from childhood and is directly related to parental love. Mom and Dad are the first ones on whom we train to build relationships. And not every one of us receives care, affection, attention in the volume that he needs.
Christina Kostikova
A person who, in adulthood, tries to earn the love of a partner, unconsciously reproduces a familiar pattern from childhood. Receiving parental love is an important need for every child. And it depends on how qualitatively and fully it will be satisfied, whether the person will reproduce the trauma in his life, but already with a partner, or enter into full-fledged relations.
Such trauma occurs after interacting with an emotionally cold parent. All the physiological needs of the child were most likely met. But the main investment was missing - emotional involvement.
Unconscious trauma requires repetition in adulthood to close a need that was not met in childhood. The paradox is that this will not work, since the partner is only a projection of the parent figure to which the request for love is directed. This means that until the mechanism of trauma is understood, the person will repeat a similar scenario over and over again. He tries to get love from someone who is not involved in his trauma, to his perception of the relationship.
Traumatic parenting is reinforced by various films and programs (for example, the show "The Bachelor"), where competition and struggle for a partner is the norm. People who are already vulnerable in this direction only become more convinced that their strategy is correct.
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Why are attempts to achieve love dangerous?
You met a person and fell in love with him with all your heart, but he did not reciprocate you. It doesn't matter in what form you received a refusal: an overt "no" or ignorance. It is important that you do not hear "yes" and you do not see in the object of adoration a readiness to equally invest in your relationship. Here you would retreat and go in search of a more suitable person for you. But many begin an operation to win love, and in vain.
You can become a victim of a manipulator
It seems that the situation is under control: you are the initiator of what is happening, you decide what to do and when. But things may not be so simple.
There is a risk of getting involved in a long unpleasant game. By being willing to do anything for love, you become a great target. You will put a lot of effort, time and other resources into satisfying the object of your adoration, but you will never be good enough. And the manipulator will receive from you all sorts of benefits and levers for control: expectation (“Just a little more, and everything will work out!”) And guilt (“I’m doing something wrong again”).
You cannot achieve any love this way. But when manipulator play enough and leave you, you will be devastated. This will hurt your self-esteem and can lead to depression. Plus, days, months, or even years will be wasted.
Christina Kostikova
It's a race for a cold partner who resembles an emotionally unavailable and indifferent parent. Paradoxically, if the object of attention suddenly reciprocates, the lover may even lose interest in him. After all, it arises in relation not to the personality itself, but to the image with which it is associated.
Moreover, a person accustomed to seeking love may perceive manifestations of reciprocity as disturbing and dangerous. Therefore, he will destroy the connection in which he does not experience familiar emotions, and again look for a goal for the race.
You will waste precious time stalking
Not only an amateur is called a stalker abandoned placesbut also the one who obsessively persecutes another person. It doesn't matter for what purpose. If you were refused, and you try to always be there, overwhelm you with gifts, constantly write or call, this is not nice. It's annoying and frightening.
Unfortunately, in Russia such persecution is romanticized and is not perceived as a danger. The victim of a stalker can change his phone number, place of residence, job. And then find yourself in a situation where parents or friends gave contacts: “Well, what? The man is good, and he loves you so much. "
Obviously, reciprocal feelings cannot be achieved in this way. Intimidate the victim and start with her relations, perhaps, someone succeeds, but you hardly dreamed about it.
Christina Kostikova
Trying to achieve love, a person does not notice how he begins to violate the boundaries of the object of attention. With his "harmless" but obsessive actions, he enters the territory of another person without permission. This causes the recipient to have the opposite effect - anger and aggression - and provokes even greater indifference towards the person seeking.
Reciprocity in your relationship is questionable
Sometimes the relationship is still achieved. Maybe you give the most beautiful flowers, cook delicious borscht or are an excellent conversationalist - you never know why to be with you. But such a union does not guarantee love or even sympathy. Relationships can be built on other feelings: gratitude, guilt, fear, or hopelessness.
It is also possible that at some point you will get bored with all this. Perhaps you are fighting for love so zealously not because you are so in love. It's just your way to prove to yourself that you are capable of something, and to raise self-esteem.
Christina Kostikova
If a person manages to earn his temporary portion of love and the relationship is nevertheless tied, then in a couple he is not perceived as a full-fledged and mature person. This position translates only his childish and infantile reaction, unconsciously forcing the partner to be in the parental position. Moreover, a person who is trying to earn love will always think that the reciprocal feelings of the object of adoration are false. Deep down, he is convinced that he is not worthy of love, even if he succeeds in achieving it.
Why you don't have to deserve love
Of course, this is not about giving up courtship and signs of attention. Just remember: they only work when the sympathy is mutual, and you don't have to deserve love in any way, because you already deserve it.
Christina Kostikova
Your parents loved you as best they could, and their actions were aimed at your benefit. You need to realize this in order to forgive them for imperfect upbringing you. Trauma often has more to do with your interpretation of events than with the actual actions of your parents. After 18 years, ideally, we ourselves should become for ourselves the best parents that we have never had. Learning to give ourselves the love, care, and kindness we need is something that we were not previously familiar with, but which we so desperately need.
Only after becoming a full-fledged, mature person, having seen and worked through their injuries, having closed their actual needs and noticing the appeared choice in your reactions, you can find the same full-fledged partner with whom you can build strong, stable, harmonious relations. Dealing with your trauma is far from easy. But this is a valuable investment you must make if you want to be happy with yourself and others.
When you stop feeling the need to serve another person, you can enjoy a respectful and warm attitude towards you from your partner. You will be able to give him your love for free and sincerely, and not in order to receive a secondary benefit.
Stability can be achieved only through yourself and your inner support. Self love will help you with this.
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