I want to focus on a relationship issue that triggers great pain to those how experience it. Unrequited Love is when we love somebody, but they do not return that love. In the last part of my life unrequited love (with nine differing people) formed a very destructive pattern. It is only in recent years that I have come to understand why I chose to go down this painful route.

On the surface, unrequited love seems rather pathetic. We love somebody and they don’t reciprocate, but we can not let them go. We obsess and fantasise about them, in the hope they might change their mind, but this never happens. WHEN I know to my cost, these relationships can consume many years of someone’s life and leave them with only pain and heartache. The question is, why would we fall for someone who was not interested in us and then, even though they have managed to get clear they have no thinking about us, continue with the obsession?

To answer this we must look at our emotional as well as perhaps spiritual needs, and particularly at what we believe we are personally lacking. Most of us have needs, it’s section of being human and we make an effort to fulfill them in the form of a loving partner or even more ideally by meeting them from within. When we fall in love, our partner gives us things that we lack. We then feel like our partner is making us whole, or complete which is why we feel so good. In a normal relationship this is usually reciprocated, but not in the case of an unrequited one. In these cases we create an imaginary relationship in our mind, that is identical in all respects to the ‘real’ one but obviously lacks a partner. This is what leads to the fantasy – in our minds we can create the perfect partner and relationship.

The trouble is that although the fantasy can be extremely convincing, it is not genuine and finally we feel frustration, disappointment and an aching emptiness. Even then we might not let go of the unrequited person because we gain a perverse pleasure from the pain and suffering. This aspect of unrequited relationships gives us a clue regarding the deeper motivations that i will explain later.

In trying to fulfill our needs through the unrequited ‘partner’, we must see certain qualities in them that we do not believe we have. In probably the most powerful unrequited experience I had, I later realised that I saw a deep and pure spirituality in the girl I fell for. This is something I definitely believed was without me yet in her it was clearly present and intoxicating. I use that last word deliberately as the attraction I had on her behalf was at the amount of addiction. It overwhelmed me and started to take over my life. Essentially, I was attempting to discover my spirituality through her, rather than discover it myself.

Assuming you have had or are experiencing an unrequited relationship, consider what quality it is you see in the focus of your attention. Notice how you feel lacking in that area. Just how through (and
amarração amorosa is how I eventually allow lady go in my example) is to realise that should you recognise a quality in someone else, you must have it in yourself. As the old saying goes, "It takes one, to learn one". Therefore accept you have the quality you have been looking for in a partner and release the unrequited person from the demand you are placing on them to satisfy your needs for the reason that area. Although it may feel that we have an undying love for see your face, this isn’t really the case. If we loved them, we would not expect them to fulfill our needs. Embrace the product quality that you were searching for in them and as you let them go, they will move out you will ever have and somebody new will enter, who has those same qualities. This time though, that person may also desire to be with you. The amazing thing about letting go of a need is that the things we were searching for in our life or relationship appear in abundance! Try it on your own – it really works. Sometimes, the letting go will do to change the whole dynamic and the unrequited relationship changes into a true, reciprocated one.