You can't be cute: why love can't be earned

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 come to his senses 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 it needs.

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 a person will reproduce the trauma he has received in his life, but with a partner, or will enter into a full-fledged relationship.

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 engagement.

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 parental figure to which the request for love is directed. This means that until the mechanism of the trauma is understood, the person will repeat a similar scenario over and over again. He is trying to get love from someone who is not involved in his trauma, to his perception of the relationship.

Traumatic education 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.

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 do not see in the object of adoration a readiness to invest equally in your relationship. Here it would be to 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 fall prey to 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 an excellent 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 will not achieve any love this way. But when the manipulator plays enough and leaves you, you will be devastated. It hurts your self-esteem and can lead to depression. Besides, days, months, and even years will be wasted.

Christina Kostikova

This is 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

A stalker is called not only a lover of abandoned places, but also one who obsessively pursues another person. It doesn't matter for what purpose. If you are refused, and you try to always be there, fill up with gifts, constantly write or call, this is not nice. This is 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, work. 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. Someone may be able to intimidate the victim and start a relationship with her, but this is hardly what you dreamed about.

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 you will get bored of all this at some point. Perhaps you are fighting for love so zealously not because you are so in love. It's just your way of proving to yourself that you are capable of something and raising your 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 the imperfect education of 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 the best parents for ourselves that we have never had. Learning to give ourselves the love, care, and kindness we need is something we weren't familiar with before, but which we so desperately need.

Only after becoming a full-fledged, mature person, having seen and worked through your injuries, having closed your actual needs and noticing the choice that has appeared in your reactions, you can find the same full-fledged partner with whom you will be able to build strong, stable, harmonious relationships. Dealing with your trauma is far from easy. But it 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.