“Why is it when I actually find someone that I genuinely care about they always end up breaking my heart.” Tim
First of all, Tim thank you so much for this question. I think this is a question many many people have. Your experiences of unrequited love are sadly common and something that often affects people’s mental health. We are born to desire love and to love others, however it is not always that easy to find another human who we like and who likes us enough to stay together for very long. Unrequited love is a uniquely painful experience. Since the areas of the brain involved with love are also activated during physical pain, we do actually feel something akin to physical pain during the loss of a close relationship. Unrequited love can negatively affect our self esteem and diminish our trust in other humans.
Humans have been falling in love since the dawn of humanity. However, relationships have been changing rapidly in recent times. Previously religious beliefs and cultural rules dictated with whom we would have relationships. However, in recent times there are large shifts due to the number of dating partners available on apps such as Tinder and the idea we now partner for love rather than for family status or for monetary reasons. You are navigating a new world of dating and it can feel lonely.
If you are looking for further reading on the topic of love one of my favourite books is A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon. This book examines the psychobiology of love and how those we love change who we are and who we become. It examines our limbic system which is the system in our brain involved with motivation, emotion, learning and memory. This system plays a large role in the feeling of falling in love. Our limbic system allows us to sense feeling states in others. Close relationships can actually modulate and control our physiology and in the case of important relationships in our lives alter the structure of our brains. This book does a wonderful job of explaining love and how one person can feel strongly for another even if this feeling is unrequited.
If over time there is a pattern where maintaining relationships is difficult it may be helpful to talk to a psychologist. They will be able to help you gain insight into why this keeps happening to you. That you can genuinely love another is a precious gift. Not all humans possess this gift so as the saying by Alfred Lord Tennyson goes “it is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all”. The biggest take away is that you should not stop trying to find love. Understand it is a process and can take quite some time to find a good match so keep looking. Alongside this grow into the person you would like to be and along the way you will meet someone who values you and ends up genuinely caring about you too.
