What It Means Loving Someone More Than They Love You?

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Unrequited love, also understood as someone loving a person more than the person who loves them, is a situation that many people find themselves in at some point in their lives.

Your romantic interest may love you more than you know. However, when you sense you are loving someone more than they love you, it feels very emotionally challenging.

You may ask questions like, “Why does it hurt to love someone?” or wonder how to explain how much you love someone; how to tell someone you love them more than anything.

It is definitely a challenge when what we have is much more than they can see or when you love someone more than yourself privately.

Below, we explore what to do when you love someone more than they love you, when you love someone so much and why it hurts to love someone sometimes.

Can you love your partner more than they love you?

Loving someone more than they love you is a taboo phenomenon, but it does happen.

When you love someone so much, sometimes what we have is more than they can see. Often we fall in love and hope that the way we feel will be reciprocated.

However, sometimes our readiness for the different stages of a relationship doesn’t match.

We may also have different attachment styles and love languages, and these both influence us in feeling that in our relationships, what we have is much more than they can see when you love someone so much.

Naturally, these differences can provoke feelings of loving someone more than they love you.

How much you love someone is not always easy to quantify by ourselves. In some scenarios, your partner could love you more than you know. In other situations, it could be that you don’t know how to explain how much you love someone.

However, for the first time in history, we have fMRI – a technology developed by Neuroscientist, 

Melina Uncapher shows the neurochemical process of love as it moves through the brain.

The idea that love can be measured by technology may seem unromantic.

However, the results in the love competition inspired by Melina’s work and filmed by Brent Hoff in association with Stanford university are undeniable. How much you love someone can be measured, and it is definitely possible to be in the position of loving someone more than they love you.

Related Reading: 10 Reasons Why It's Wrong to Love Someone Too Much

Is it okay to love someone more than they love you?

For some people, just being with someone they love is enough, and they don’t deeply contemplate the concept of loving someone more than they love you.

Some people love someone so much and know they love their partner more but hope that they can change their partner’s feelings over time. Others may even enjoy the feeling of ‘I love you more than everything’ and think when you love someone more than yourself that this is devotional and romantic. These people may not pay much attention to imbalances in the way love is expressed.

However, if you notice imbalances, the challenge of loving someone more than they love you is being honest if you tolerate living long term, knowing that what we have is much more than they can see.

Can you accept this imbalance when you love someone so much?

Aren’t you supposed to receive the same amount of love back when you love someone so much?

When you love someone so much, it can be challenging knowing whether it’s okay to stay around them. You may feel hurt at times and wonder why it hurts to love someone.

If loving someone is detrimental to your self-care and wellbeing, it is not okay, and hoping to change someone’s behavior or that it will change itself over time when you love someone so much may lead to frustration, disappointment, hurt, and anger.

All your feelings concerned with how much you love someone are caused by chemical dopamine and oxytocin reactions that take place in your body.

You may also start to feel symptoms of lovesickness. Many of these symptoms could have serious health consequences in the longer term.

Loving someone more than they love you might feel okay if love languages are aligned and if both partners consciously practice interdependence.

Interdependence is when both partners value the importance of the emotional bond they share, understanding love imbalances but maintain their own sense of self within the relationship and do not rely on it for their sense of self or wellbeing.

However, if loving someone more than they love you is damaging your self-confidence, physical body and limiting your ability to be yourself, then it is not okay.

Related Reading: How Do You Know If You Love Someone

Why sometimes it hurts when you love someone so much?

Why it hurts to love someone is simply because we all deeply want to be loved, love and the need to attach to the main attachment figure is one of our fundamental needs.

Studies show that neuroimaging studies have also shown that brain regions involved in processing physical pain overlap considerably with social pain. The connection is so strong that traditional painkillers seem capable of soothing our emotional wounds.

However, the social pain from when you love someone so much may be worse in the long run.

This helps us understand why it hurts to love someone.

At the moment, a punch in the face might feel just as bad as a relationship breakdown when you love someone so much, but with a punch, the physical aching goes away.

Alternatively, the memory of lost love and struggles around how to tell someone you love them more than anything can linger forever.

Research confirms that social pain is easily re-lived, whereas physical pain is not.

Why do we stay with partners who love us less than we love them?

The main reasons why it hurts to love someone and you stay in situations where you love them more than they love you is: fear.

Sometimes when you love someone so much, even if you are not being treated in a way that feels like what you have is more than they can see, you may stay because you fear. If this doesn’t work out, maybe nothing will.

We accept the love we think we deserve based on our level of self-esteem. Your reactions to how much you love someone is also rooted in the way we learned to behave and interpret how to explain how much you love someone as children.

We tend to respond to loving people based on the templates we learned in childhood.

You may stay with partners, where what we have is much more than they can see if, as a child, your primary example templates were unbalanced love scenarios. For example, you may have witness examples that demonstrate not receiving more love back and no explanation if or why it hurts to love and whether that is okay or not.

10 Things you may experience when you love someone more than they love you

Check out what happens when you are loving someone more than they love you:

1. Decisions without communication

You may notice that the person you love makes many plans but most of them don’t involve you.

In addition, some of these plans may have the potential to negatively impact or change your relationship. If your partner only wants to see you when it suits them then there is likely inequity in the relationship.

2. Feeling alone

You may feel an overarching feeling of being the only one invested in the future of the relationship or spending time together. This can make you feel alone within the relationship.

Relationship guru Matthew Hussey explains how feeling lonely is something many of us can feel when we love someone so much, himself included.

3. Misaligned interest in personal lives and goals

When you love someone so much, it is likely important to you that you can share your personal life and goals. However, when you love someone more than they love you, you may not feel they reciprocate a mutual level of interest in these areas of your life.

How to tell someone you love them more than anything and that shared goal is something that is often easier said than done.

4. Shallow conversations

Perhaps you feel like you are the one who generally sends the first text or calls, and when you communicate with your love, the conversations remain centered around small talk.

Small talk can be enjoyable, but if the conversations with your love lack intimacy and are not different from those with a stranger, you may have a problem, according to the Connolly counseling center.

5. Sex without intimacy

Hooking up rather than spending quality time doing non-sexual activities may feel fun at first.

Professor of sociology Kathleen Bogle explains there has been a major shift over the past few decades with the development of ‘a hookup’ culture where it’s normalized that people are sexually active without their being a committed relationship attached.

Sex may feel fun at first, and you may even naively use it as a method to explain how much you love someone. However, as mentioned earlier, we cannot make someone love us even when you tell them, “I love you more than everything.”

When you love someone so much, it might feel disappointing having sex without a mutual felt desire for deeper intimacy.

Related Reading: Why Intimacy Is More Than Just Sex

6. Self-doubt and reduced self-esteem

The overstepping of healthy boundaries that can occur in a relationship where what you have is much more than they can see may lead us to doubt ourselves. You may question if there is something wrong with you, especially when you love someone more than yourself.

It’s important to ensure we are not neglecting ourselves. Marielle Sunico invites us to contemplate the question: Have you stopped looking for self-growth because your only focus is your partner?

Related Reading: How Low Self Esteem Affects a Relationship

7. Relationship Entrapment

When your self-esteem is low, you feel alone, and you love someone so much, you may find it hard to leave the relationship or not know how to explain how much you love someone and what you desire to change.

Perhaps you find yourself feeling trapped in a relationship because you’ve spent so much time focusing more on loving them so much it hurts, and now don’t feel you have enough resources to support yourself alone.

8. Over apologizing and excuses

According to J.S. von Dacre, 90% of people confuse codependency with intense love.

“Codependency is a circular relationship in which one person needs the other person, who in turn, needs to be needed. The codependent person, known as ‘the giver,’ feels worthless unless they are needed by and making sacrifices for the enabler, otherwise known as ‘the taker.”

– Dr Exelberg

Perhaps you think you just love someone so much. However, a sign that you are experiencing unhealthy codependency is when you need to feel needed by a specific love interest in order to feel worthy. Your feelings can be exacerbated by an ongoing fear of rejection.

9. Triggered anxiety 

One-sided relationships where you love someone more than they love you can cause the release of stress hormones. These hormones can trigger anxiety, and this anxiety can contribute to other challenges with us functioning daily.

The psychological trauma from the anxiety means an elevated risk of heart attack and physical pain. It’s important to be mindful of this, especially if you have an anxious attachment style.

10. Minimal support during difficult times

When it comes to navigating difficult times, it can feel upsetting to be with a partner that doesn’t realize what we have is more than they can see.

“We might notice that we’re the ones that always make the phone call or initiate the contact, or we’re the one that’s listening, or we really never have a chance to discuss what’s on our mind’ –

Dr Bea from cleveland clinic.

This is why it hurts to love someone sometimes. Imagine having a difficult time but feeling like you have to navigate it alone despite having someone you love so much in your life.

What should you do if you love someone more than they love you?

Choosing whether to be someone when what we have is much more than they can see and when you feel you are loving someone more than they love you is a personal choice.

People feel and experience love at different times and in different ways (love languages) or quite simply lack the experience and wisdom to behave any better.

• In this case, it may be useful to hire a professional mentor to get objective clarity and support. A professional person may help you to understand why you love someone so much and help you identify if perhaps someone loves you more than you know.

• It may also be a great idea to take some alone time, perhaps a short trip to gain some perspective and practice self-care.

• Wherever possible, try to communicate with the person you love, explain what you desire and what it means to you. Don’t expect them to read your mind. 

• Use the theory of love languages to try and witness what your special someone does to show love. Perhaps consider the concept of acknowledging effort before perfection. 

• If the relationship is abusive and you are losing your sense of self, and your health is deteriorating, you may want to consider ending the relationship.

Takeaway

When you love someone a lot more than their feelings for you and you know the right approach to solve the problem, you can make amends in the relationship.

In cases where the partner refuses to pay heed to the imbalance, severing the ties is the right thing to do.