Stop it. Just stop it.
Stop making excuses for him in your own mind. Stop making excuses for him to everyone else. The harsh truth is that if he truly wanted to be there, he would. If he needed you for his own, he’d make sure it happened. If he cared about you the way you care about him, he wouldn’t leave you hanging, dangling, waiting for the tiniest scrap he throws your way.
You do this every time and still, you never learn. You give too much weight to a man who gives you no consideration in return. Every time, you’re left alone, wondering why he didn’t want you. Why doesn’t he see the connection you share? It makes no sense. Such a thing can’t be one-sided, can it? Apparently, it can, more than once, because you keep making the same mistake.
It’s true that you’re trying. You don’t want it to be this way. It’s just that every time you think a man is different, he somehow turns out like all the others. You despair of ever choosing someone functional, someone who will love you in a healthy and mature way. Instead, you go back again and again to the guy who withholds everything you deserve. It’s because somewhere deep down, you don’t actually believe you deserve it at all.
There’s only one way to stop the pain, and it isn’t pretty. You have to stop chasing after the man who doesn’t give you his emotional time of day. You have to stop. Just stop. Go inside. Delve deeply into the nooks and crannies of your own psyche. You have to rip yourself into shreds so that you can build yourself into a better, whole, self-loving version 2.0. It sucks, there’s no way around it – but the possibility of breaking your tortured patterns is worth the difficulty.
So stop it. Stop telling yourself that somewhere deep down, he cares. You never have to search for meaning in a heart that understands your value. You never have to search for clues in the words of a person who loves you and knows better than to lose you. His feelings will be plain as day. Unfortunately, you won’t know this until you stop running desperately after the approval of the unavailable. In order to accept real love, you must first believe you can have it.
If I sound harsh, it’s because I am you and you are me. I need you to understand what to do and then, maybe, someday, I can do the same. Maybe if I drill this knowledge into your head some of it will sink into my own. I, too, am tired of the heartache. I’m tired of torturing myself over someone who does not – and will not – feel deeply for me.
Stop it. Just stop it.
Maybe if I tell you – and myself – enough, it’ll actually happen. For both of us.
By Amy Horton for ThoughtCatalog