Are you dating or seeing a man that you really love but for whatever reason they
don't feel the same way about you?
Or are you secretly in love with a friend or
colleague and find yourself obsessively thinking about getting him to love you
back?
it's like you're stuck in this difficult position and unsure of how to
move forward or get out.
if that sounds familiar then you have to watch this
video and learn what to do when you love a man who can't or won't love you back
don't go anywhere because we're starting right now
hi everyone I'm Dr. Antonio Borrello and I'm a psychologist and a relationship
coach. this channel is all about helping you build great relationships so you can
grow happy with the people you love so if you're interested in making your love
life the best part of your life start now by clicking the subscribe button and
hit the bell notification so you aren't missing anything okay on to our topic
when you love someone who can't love you back
so let me start by giving you some examples so you know exactly what I'm
talking about the first is a situation where you've been dating a person and
you're falling in love with them but they don't want a commitment or a
serious relationship at this time he doesn't want anything serious or he
doesn't want labels the second example you have a crush or you're secretly in
love with a friend of yours may be someone you work with or a classmate or
a neighbor and he doesn't even know how strongly you feel about him so you have
a friendship with this person but you really want more and the third situation
is when you've dated a guy and had a relationship that has ended so now he's
your ex but you still see him and you're still in love with him but he clearly
isn't returning the same feelings anymore it's like an on-again off-again
ex that isn't committing the way he did before now what do all of these
scenarios have in common well they're all examples of some form of unrequited
love unrequited love is a feeling of being deeply in love with someone who
can't or won't love you the way that you love him and it's a very common
phenomenon in fact research indicates that between 93 and 98 percent of
American adults have had at least one experience with it and one thing is for
certain the pain of loving someone who doesn't feel the same way about you can
be devastating and almost unbearable in fact of all the forms of negative
emotions you can experience none of them are as acutely painful as this type of
romantic rejection but why does it happen why do people fall so deeply in
love with a person who won't return those feelings first and this may be
difficult to hear and believe but we have little control over who we start to
like and become attracted to I mean of course there needs to be a reason to see
that person and there usually needs to be some interaction but the feeling
enters your life very pleasantly like a person
takes on a special meaning it might be an old friend or colleague who is
unexpectedly seen in a new way or it can happen with a new person but it usually
starts by some act or behavior the other person does some look that they give you
or something they say to you or some gesture that indicates that they may
have some attraction towards you and then BOOM you notice it it's a feeling
that can strike hard and fast or it can slowly develop over time but there's a
definite point when things change when you think back on how your relationship
started you can usually remember the exact moment when the romantic
attraction hit you when you knew you wanted that person and so you continue
to admire them you become more physically attracted you see or you
think you see the hint of them also liking you back and then the process is
set in motion and when the feelings are reciprocated we see the beginnings of
dating and even love relationships but when you're struck with these feelings
and they're not reciprocated for example when you're crushing on a friend or a
co-worker or even an unavailable person things can go quite differently in these
cases a tendency to idealize your crush takes hold and you begin to imagine all
of these great possibilities of the two of you together you imagine how amazing
it's going to be you're going to fall in love it's going to be the best thing
ever and the world is going to be perfect it becomes this belief that this
person will be this utopian ideal of a man for you
the one that you've been waiting for the one who's going to complete you and of
course this happens to all couples who are falling in love that is they have a
tendency to idealize their partner and the world is blissful and everything is
wonderful and they're drunk in law but then over time as they get to know one
another and they spend so much time with them they will slowly appear more flawed
than they originally thought they were the idealization is replaced by reality
you start to see them as human again and this is the normal pattern but when
you're dealing with unrequited love you're noticing all of his good features
and traits you're idealizing him and the potential relationship but you're never
really given the opportunity to experience reality the day to day grind
you're never experiencing the frick or seeing his flaws and that allows your
crush to appear perfect and to remain perfect but it's simply not reality and
thus the idealization continues the second reason people fall for an
unavailable person has to do with the perceived probability of the
relationship we feel unrequited love because we think an actual relationship
might be possible although it's not for sure and this can happen when there is a
friendship with mixed signals or we misconstrue the interest of someone else
for example in cases where you work with the person you have to interact with him
on a regular basis and when you're in love you tend to have what psychologists
call a confirmation bias a tendency to grab on to whatever positive signs that
he might be interested while discounting or ignoring the negative ones
of course this prolongs the hope because there are enough positive signs to seize
on - and over-interpret on the other hand the man who's not interested often
feels guilty and doesn't want to hurt you and so he struggles with telling the
truth versus minimizing the pain that you will feel so yeah getting mixed
messages certainly makes a person hold on so how do you know if you're
experiencing obsessive unrecruited love here are seven signs to look for number
one do you experience intrusive thinking about this person throughout the day is
your focus or your work frequently interrupted by these intrusive thoughts
number two do you experience an aching desire for him to want you number three
is your mood significantly impacted by his actions or inactions towards you
number four you have an incredible fear of being rejected by him number five you
have a tendency to interpret his neutral behaviors as having a hidden passionate
meaning number six you have a tendency to emphasize and exaggerate what is
truly remarkable about him while avoiding dwelling on the negative in
number seven you have more conversations with him in your head than in real life
so yeah if you're experiencing more than a few of these signs you're probably
dealing with obsessive unrecruited love and if that's the case know that you're
not alone most of us have experienced the pain of loving someone who doesn't
love you I certainly haven't in my years of working
psychologist and a marriage counselor I'd say that dealing with unrequited
love is one of the most common reasons people begin therapy and working with a
psychologist romantic rejection is just so painful and difficult to deal with
so how do you go about turning things around or moving on
well first I'm going to talk about situations where you may be in love with
a friend who probably doesn't know the extent of your feelings towards them
then we're going to talk about other situations where one person doesn't want
a relationship or friends with benefits and lingering relationships with an
on-again off-again ex so first should you tell your friend or colleague or
coworker your true feelings for him if you're dealing with a romantic obsession
with a friend or colleague you cannot continue to experience these feelings
indefinitely it either has to become a reciprocated relationship or the
unrequited love has to stop you just can't go on this way so doing nothing is
not an option here if you continue without doing anything
you will simply fall more in love and more obsessed with him and it won't be
good so coming clean with your feelings is
the first step make the decision to have the talk think about what you'll say and
how and then ask your friend for a time to have a conversation and when the time
comes to have the conversation you must be as honest and direct as possible and
ask him to be as honest and direct regardless of your feelings you never
know you might be surprised to find that the feeling is mutual on the other hand
you must be prepared to hear him tell you that he does not share the same
feelings for you and if he tells you that he's not
interested you must believe him you must accept his words at face value and not
try to look for any alternative explanations or reasons and you must let
go of the hope that he will eventually come to love you you must let that go
and focus on getting past this believe me your friend does not want to hurt you
and it's not easy for him to tell you that he's not interested so when he does
you've got to accept it yes they will be devastating words to hear but they will
also offer you a conclusion dealing with this pain is hard especially if you're
already close to the person that you've fallen for it's going to be difficult to
understand how they can reject you when you've shared so much however this does
not mean that your friendship has to be over it is possible to sustain the
friendship after your confession but keep in mind though that it's
important to consider your intentions honestly if you continue the friendship
because you're secretly hoping that he will change his mind
then you're not honoring yourself your friend or the friendship in the end this
deception can lead to more pain for you and for your friend so how do you deal
with the pain of the rejection while still remaining friends first it's
important to understand your feelings are normal it's normal to grieve and to
feel hurt and sad and confused and angry but it's also important not to direct
those feelings at your friend trust me if he's your friend he doesn't want to
be the cause of your pain provided that he didn't lie to you or purposefully
lead you on he's simply being honest about his feelings just as you were with
yours he can't help having platonic affection
for you just as you can't help having romantic affection for him you're both
going to struggle to deal with the situation yet your friendship can
recover if the situation is addressed with care and maturity and you'll
probably experience some awkwardness or feel slightly different you might
experience some weird interactions or occasionally feel embarrassed around
each other this isn't necessarily anyone's fault and can happen even if
you both truly want to remain friends it may simply indicate you both need time
to recover and lastly it may feel more natural to completely avoid your friend
but according to research studies on this topic friends who continue to talk
and see each other are more likely to remain friends than those who stay away
from each other this isn't to say that you shouldn't give yourself some space
even if you don't feel you need it it can be helpful to take some time away
for healing now what about situations where you're
in love with a man who doesn't want a commitment or you're involved in a
friends-with-benefits situation and you want more these are the situations where
one person doesn't want anything serious but still wants all the benefits of a
relationship and these may be the most difficult of all situations because
you're acting like a couple yeah you're never really sure where you stand and
when you get stuck in this kind of gray area relation
a little too long it might mean that you're wasting your time on a man who
will never commit to you and the longer you stay in this situation the more
attached you become and the harder it is to get out without a broken heart I've
made a video on how to handle these types of unrecruited love situations and
get into the fulfilling relationship you want you can click here to watch that
video now or click here to watch the video that YouTube thinks you'll like
and this video has been a bit different from my usual style so give it a thumbs
up to let me know if you like this topic and leave a comment and let me know if I
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livestream leave a comment and let me know I'll see you in the next video