“Once we make our relationship choices in an adult way, a prospective partner who is unavailable, nonreciprocal, or not open to processing feelings and issues, becomes, by these very facts, unappealing. Once we love ourselves, people no longer look good to us unless they are good for us.” ~David Ricco
One thing I particularly love is caring about someone and loving them. Being able to do so gives me a great sense of connection, satisfaction, and purpose. It’s fulfilling, life-enhancing, and simply feels wonderful.
All my life I’ve chased relationships so that I could get the love I need. But I used to struggle with choosing suitable partners.
For my dreams to become a reality, I needed to choose partners who also wanted what I wanted. I needed people who also wanted to care and love someone—preferably me—and create a life together.
Instead, I chose emotionally unavailable people who either did not know how to create emotional connections or who simply didn’t want them.
And so, my dreams never became reality. What I experienced instead were highly distressing and unhealthy relationship dynamics.
I felt devastated that I wasn’t loved the way I wanted to be loved. I felt unliked and unwanted.
I may have been in a relationship, but I was, most certainly, alone. My ultimate nightmare. My deepest fear.
After way too many years in hopeless relationships, I had a huge insight that completely transformed my life and my experience of relationships.
And all of a sudden it dawned on me…
My pain in these relationships didn’t come from them not loving me. It came from me not loving them. It came from me loving them less and less with every unloving experience we had together.
In the beginning of the relationship, the positive, excited, and loving thoughts and feelings I had about them felt wonderful. I enjoyed imagining all the happy and fun times we’d have together. I was excited in their presence because I anticipated passion and intimacy.
And then none of that happened.
I felt crushed and disappointed, and yet, I kept soldiering on, wishing that they would change. I was hoping that I could earn their love and finally get the love I had been craving all my life.
But it didn’t happen.
Instead, I was called names, lied to, cheated on, dismissed, invalidated, shamed, rejected, and ignored.
And, without realizing it at the time because I felt too heartbroken about the way my partners behaved toward me, I stopped loving them. These experiences chipped away at my love, hope, and trust, and eventually, I stopped caring.
I went numb.
I lived my life and got by just fine on the outside, but there was a void within me. A quiet and hopeless state of surrender threaded through my days, months, and years.
Until my insight about where my feelings were coming from, I had always believed that my pain was caused by my uncaring and neglectful partners.
I hadn’t realized that I wasn’t giving myself an opportunity to care and love for someone the way I wanted to by staying with people who clearly weren’t interested in creating healthy and intimate relationships.
I was staying with partners for whom I had lost all respect, certainly didn’t love anymore, and also no longer cared for. I used to think that I still cared, but I know now that I mistook guilt for care.
I was so preoccupied with them not loving me that I didn’t even realize that I no longer loved them. And so I stayed. I stayed while being trapped in my codependent conditioning. And if it hadn’t been for my powerful insight, I probably would have continued that soul-destroying relationship pattern.
Freeing myself from that pattern has allowed me to figure out what I want and then make appropriate choices that enable me to get it.
I now know that I need to choose people who make it easy for me to love them, and that doesn’t mean that we need to agree on everything and never have arguments. It means that they value and respect the bond we have. It means that together, we keep it safe so we can continue to love and care freely.
Since then I have created healthy and fulfilling relationships—not just with others but especially with myself, something I had never even wanted in the past but that has been completely transformational for me, my emotional well-being, and surprisingly, for my relationships too.
I now share my codependency insights so others can free themselves from their codependent conditioning too by having their own realizations and insights. Because that is the only way to finally get the love you need.
About Marlena Tillhon
Marlena is a highly experienced psychotherapist and success coach specialising in healing inner trauma and breaking unhealthy patterns that stop her ambitious clients from having the success they know they can have in their lives, relationships, and careers. You can find her on Instagram or Facebook and receive her free training and gifts on her website.
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine.
At the end of the day, a healthy relationship shouldn’t leave you feeling drained. it should leave you feeling fed. Codependency locks us into believing we can change someone or that they will change. But when a person’s true colors are shown we need to take off our blinders and see them! Relationships change and evolve over time and individuals sometimes do as well, but if you find yourself feeling the balance of a relationship off kilter, it may be time get off the sinking ship. And you nailed it Marlena when you said you lost respect and love for your partner. Why do we stay with people who we don’t love or respect? I’ve personally done it thinking they would change or out of fear of me being alone. I am alone now and loving life! I have great friendships with two of my exes, (one of which I was married to for over 20 years and have kids with) and I can love them more now that I don’t live with them! I date but really don’t want to dive into that serious relationship pool. This may sound selfish, but for the first time in my life, I take care of me first and in doing so it grounds me to be a less resentful and a more loving, giving person. Be brave and be fearless and don’t be afraid of change. Life can be challenging and beautiful at the same time.
Hi Marlena, thank you for sharing. There’s a lot to unpack here.
It seems like you were in love with the idea of being in love. What I mean by that is, it wasn’t based in reality or the people you were with.
It seems like you desperately wanted to be with someone, anyone because you were afraid to be alone and craved love. Unsurprisingly the reality of being in an unhealthy relationship wasn’t fulfilling.
I think it’s really important to understand why you made those choices. What made it unbearable for you to be alone with yourself? Why was your focus on others making you feel loved instead of fulfilling that role yourself? Did you equate feeling needed i.e. by caring for someone with being loved?
I think it’s unfair to suggest that you intentionally chose unhealthy relationships. If so, you did it subconsciously. Unless you simply didn’t feel worthy of love and happiness at the time.
Schemas are unhealthy thought patterns which subconsciously guide our actions and choices. We can learn these patterns from the people around us. As humans we crave normalcy, sameness. For example, if someone close to you was consistently in unhappy relationships especially growing up. That could be seen as normal. Alternatively if we have unhappy relationships with our parents, we can try and repeat that unhealthy relationship throughout our lives.
Recognising these patterns can help us actively break away from them, which seems to be what happened with you Marlena.
Side note: Even if we try pick a healthy partner. Abusive partners can pretend to be healthy, loving, caring until you’re attached to them, making a partner less likely to leave and more likely to tolerate abusive behaviour.
Having healthy boundaries and maintaining them assertively is probably the most important part of the process. Simply being willing to end unhealthy relationships.
Thank you. This is so my life,you wrote this as if you know me. And again now I am where I know that I should just put it all behind me and leave,and hope that the next relationship will not be just a one way street but something nice to be in.
Great article
“I mistook guilt for care” is the best thing I’ve heard these last couple of weeks. I realized this past weekend that once I opened my heart despite it being hurt, love floods in from everywhere least expected. Nature, co-workers and two cats. Thank you for this article!
Hello Malena, thanks for the beautiful article. How do you know where does it end the love and start the co dependency?
Sometimes I feel consciously that I’m making very little to understand my partner, I would like to improve, but also for my partner to improve. We are both in this path, and we have very deep talks, we both want to be better for each other.
Due to the lives we’ve lived, we have different oppinions about life, we care deeply for each other, but these differences make us fight constantly. So, when do you think there is no salvation?
I know this has been said countless times, but I feel it is so important that it can never be said too often- ‘Before you can love anyone else, you must love yourself’.
Hi Helena, thanks for sharing your thoughts and interpretation. I am actually a schema therapist and do this work with clients 😉 I also agree that willingness is a huge part of the process. All the best, Marlena
I would love to leve my relationship but to scared
Hi Bm, I am glad that my article helped you. It can be tough to make the decision to leave but the freedom that awaits on the other side is priceless. I work with many people who struggle to leave their relationships and there are many empowering ways of doing so and avoiding to repeat patterns of choosing unhealthy, overly selfish or emotionally unavailable partners. Wishing you all the best, Marlena
Eljae, I love what you shared, thanks so much. I have also found that the fears I once had were completely unfounded and now LOVE time by myself 🙂 I am really happy for you that you have a great life now that you are no longer ‘locked in codependency’ – love that term! Thanks for sharing it 🙂 All the best, Marlena