Written and verified by the psychologist GetPersonalGrowth.
Last update: 15 November 2021
We deserve the same love we give to others, the same sincere, selfless and genuine affection. Too often, what we offer is not reciprocated in the same way, with the same intensity and quality. Life is not a boomerang, what you give does not always come back, but even if this is the case there are those who never stop trying to give their best.
Most of us believe in the idea that to win someone over you have to do something "beautiful". This is how we start a dynamic filled with the most varied favors, gifts, preferences, thoughts, flattery ... We know that affection is earned with attention, yet sometimes we don't know how to measure limits. We don't realize that we deserve the same love we give to others.
"The way in which you give is more valuable than the gift itself."
-Pierre Corneille-
But it's not just about the courtship process. The world is full of people who give without barriers, of people aware of how much it costs to offer the whole soul without receiving anything in return. People capable of investing in others with every fragment of their being, convinced that their efforts are not only worth the effort, but life itself.
Still, extreme sacrifices aren't always entirely positive. In fact, they have consequences that seriously threaten a person's mental and emotional health.
We deserve the same love we give to others, not a surrogate
Everything you take care of thrives. We have an example of this with plants, when we put them in the sun, we prune them, we cut off the old leaves and we transplant them into a bigger pot so that they can expand their roots. Attention, concern and affection make us grow in all senses and in all directions. Well, as much as the gardener cares about his plants, it shouldn't be forgotten that he too needs attention. Small detail that he often escapes us.
There are those who spend a lifetime offering their brightest love, a river of attention and emotions that are not always returned to them. These people have accepted, in a sense, to limit themselves to second-hand love, a surrogate that, far from nurturing, poisons. While aware of this, they do not stop doing it. When asked how one can get stuck in a relationship without reciprocity, the answer is much more complex than we imagine.
Lack of self-esteem could be mentioned, but the discussion is much broader. When these people resort to a therapist, the first thing that catches the attention of the experts is the flow of internal dialogue of the patients. When they are asked to talk about themselves and define themselves, they start speeches like: "I am the second of three brothers, it was difficult, no one was paying attention to me", "I work in administration, I had to start working immediately without being able to study, all my dreams remained unfinished ”.
They are stories of unsatisfied lives, often accompanied by a sense of resigned acceptance of those who believe, after all, that they deserve a reality in chiaroscuro. This is why they surrender to relationships that do not give them true happiness, because they do not feel able to aspire to something better, because in their opinion life has put them in the second row and forced to accept what comes.
The great thing is that they keep giving everything for the people in their life, because the act of offering love and attention is their greatest strength, their main skill. If they didn't, they would feel even more frustrated ...
Let's give ourselves what we need
We deserve the same love we give to others, and it is not an act of selfishness, on the contrary, it is a desire for integrity, for personal dignity. We have been gardeners for too long, the only architects of relationships where we ourselves have planted the pillars, the floors, the walls. We were the only ones to check that the ceiling did not collapse and that love was safe, under cover, well sheltered. Yet we stayed outside, and the cold is now burning.
We deserve the love we have always dreamed of and which has not yet come. As we said at the beginning, life is not a boomerang that returns the love given to others. Often that boomerang stays halfway, or maybe it doesn't even begin the return journey. The time has come to stop waiting for a reciprocity that does not come, to invest part of our life in a market that instead of giving us a profit, makes us bankrupt.
We deserve a love that does not hurt, that fills and makes us grow. We must learn to be demanding and to feel that it belongs to us. To do this, it is necessary to change strategy. We stop giving and start receiving. We have already been experts in offering affection capable of saving others, now it is up to us to become recipients of that love. We value ourselves, nurture our roots and take back those dreams that have been shot down. We abandon conformism and stagnant acceptance. Let's free ourselves to find ourselves.
