Realizing that you were never loved by someone you love can hurt, but acknowledging it can help you let them go and find someone who will.
Emotionally unavailable
Love is about being vulnerable with someone and being present. But your partner closed off every time you tried to reach them. They avoided the heart-to-heart talks. They refused to listen to how you felt.
Creating a solid relationship involves a great deal of hard work and sacrifice. They weren’t interested in getting messy with you.
Needs ignored
Someone who loves you doesn’t see you as an inconvenience. If you felt like your partner only took your goals, dreams, or even your feelings into consideration when it benefited them, that’s a huge red flag.
They didn’t care about your needs.
Conditional support
Love is like a rock that you build your life around during the storms. It’s not a bouquet of flowers that’s only here for the good weather.
If they were there for you when times were easy but froze at the first sign of conflict or trouble, they only loved the ideal version of you. They loved you when you were making their life easy.
Lacking celebration
Your partner should be your number one supporter and teammate throughout life. If they brushed off your accomplishments, offered backhanded compliments, or even acted hostile when you did something great, they didn’t care about you growing as a person.
When someone loves you, they celebrate your wins because they want you to be the best version of yourself.
Forced affection
You may have also slowly started to feel that their expression of love was forced. Every time they bought you something nice, planned a romantic date, or even touched you felt calculated.
They only showed you affection when they wanted something from you or after they knew they messed up and wanted you to forgive them. If their love was conditional on you meeting their needs, they were using it to manipulate you.
Future exclusion
When we fall in love, we start to look for ways to include our partners in our future. If you began to realize that they only spoke about the future in terms of “I” instead of “we,” they never planned on you being in their life long-term.
They may have loved the life you could provide them with right now, but they weren’t trying to build a bridge to a future with you.
One-sided communication
Relationships should feel like a two-way conversation. You may have found yourself constantly listening to them talk about themselves. They probably never asked you about your day or your thoughts.
Anytime you brought up a topic, they wanted to steer back to themselves. If they never asked you questions, they only cared about themselves.
Avoiding accountability
You can tell someone loved you by how they reacted when you expressed a problem. Do they blame you for how you feel? Do they pull the victim card anytime you try to address something specific they did?
Someone in love will listen, accept faults, and try to improve how they treat you. If they never owned up to their mistakes, they only cared about how admitting fault would make them feel.
Ignoring boundaries
Loving someone means respecting them, including the boundaries you tell them. Every time you told them “no” or expressed your comfort levels, they gave you a hard time.
Whether they pushed your boundaries, made you feel guilty for having them, or ignored them altogether, they put their wants and needs above yours. If they weren’t honoring your boundaries, they didn’t respect you as their equal.
Superficial knowledge
You spent months/years with this person and they still didn’t know your values, your fears, or what makes you feel loved.
If they were happy only knowing the version of you that showed up on the surface (maybe the version that made their life easiest), they fell in love with the concept of being with someone. They never fell in love with you.
Persistent intuition
You knew the moment you met them that something was off. You may have felt like you constantly had to earn their love and that you weren’t good enough.
There’s a reason your subconscious screamed at you when you were with them. You didn’t feel loved because deep down, you knew you weren’t.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
