What I've learnt from Unreciprocated Love

In full honesty, I've never been the one to get broken up with. I'm always the one who ends things. I was chatting with friends over brunch, and one of them said, “I think it hurts more for the person who breaks up than for the one who gets broken up with.”

I disagreed a bit and said that from my experience, it still hurts, but maybe not as much as it does for the person being broken up with. That's because we get to see the heartbreak coming and silently grieve over the relationship for weeks, even months, before we finally break someone's heart. I also mentioned that I can't fully understand the other side since I've never been on it. Later, during the drive home, it hit me that I actually have experienced it before.

Heartbreak isn't just about being dumped. It’s about unreciprocated love too. This could be a situation where you’re more than friends but less than lovers, knowing deep down that things won't change. Or it could be a crush that seems full of potential but never turns into anything.

So yes, I've had those experiences, and they hurt more than breaking someone’s heart. Here are three things I've learned during these times of unreciprocated love.

Saying “I love you, but...” is like saying, “I didn’t love you at all.”

There's a quote I saw on Goodreads that goes:

Sometimes you want to say, “I love you, but...” Yet the “but” takes away the ‘I love you’. In love, there are no ‘buts’ or ‘ifs’ or ‘whens’. It’s just there, always. No beginning, no end. It’s the condition-less state of the heart. – Jamie Weise

This is so true for today's "situationships" where there's potential for everything and nothing at the same time. It’s always “I would, but-”, “I have feelings for you, but-” and “If only... then we’d be perfect.”

Love isn’t half-hearted. We shouldn’t settle for anything less. Love has no conditions because it's bigger than that. This quote made me wonder if I've ever truly loved someone because my love always came with conditions. This man would’ve been perfect for me IF only he shared my culture/religion. I could marry this man BUT I worry about our future financial stability due to his limited opportunities.

My mom used to say I scare her because I love so rationally, and now I get it. Love should be irrational and surpass all conditions. I'm grateful I let go of people I loved conditionally, and I sincerely apologize to them.

Seeking closure is pointless.

I read a quote from “The Comfort Book” by Matt Haig:

Closure is unreachable in a universe where everything is open.

It’s tempting to seek answers about why you didn’t get your happy ending or why they chose someone else over you. I've been there. The truth is, you’ll never find closure because the universe is so vast and uncertain that there could be millions of factors affecting this unreciprocation. Maybe they don’t even know the exact reason themselves!

Maybe in a parallel universe, you do end up with them, but not in this one. So let's leave the worry and anguish behind and let the other us in that universe do their thing while we focus on what we can do in ours.

“If you’re softer than before they came, then you have been loved.”

This beautiful quote is from Nayyirah Waheed. For relationships that didn’t work out, or were broken, it’s hard to see the good in them when you're left confused and in pieces. But after thinking long and hard, I realized that all my unreciprocated loves left me feeling softer. Because of them, I now know how deeply I can love someone, even to the point of losing myself.

I now know I can love someone intensely and forgive them when things don’t work out. I also know I'm capable of unconditional love because I harbor no ill-will towards them and wish them the best despite how we ended.

I came out of that low period feeling happier and less confused about life, and I hope reading this brings you the same comfort too.