Unrequited is an old word, a word not very much seen anymore, and yet, a word that can describe our experience today as much as any time before us. Unrequited means not returned or reciprocated. It is most associated with another word, love, as in unrequited love.
As a marriage counselor, I see a lot of people who would say they experience unrequited love. They don’t like it very much. In fact, it can be a source of great hurt and intense resentment. It often leads to divorce. Why? Because people say, “I gave my love to you and what did I get in return? They say, “it feels like very little.” Bitterness sets in.
There are times when this is objectively true in that it really is a one sided relationship or it turns that way. There’s an old quip about a woman in new love who said, “he would simply gaze at me across the room and I would soak in his admiration while I cooked dinner.” A year later she would think, “why doesn’t he get up and help me?” Perceptions change, attitudes change and we have to be able to adjust to that.
When it is true that the marital agreement is one sided AND we feel resentment for it, we can try to find a way to change the contract. Candid conversation, open and free, is a good place to start. If you feel resentment you’ll want to do this. Saying you shouldn’t feel this way to yourself is a denial of your experience and you need to boldly go forward with what your experience is telling you. We can do this in a kind way, one that is not threatening or demanding.
This resentment can range from unequal household tasks, to a feeling that there’s not enough sex, to a feeling of loneliness from a lack of personal and intimate communication. Where it can get toxic real fast is where one person withholds one thing while the other withholds something else. In its simplest form, its “you don’t talk to me, so we are not having sex.” Or conversely, “I’m not talking to you, since you refuse to have sex with me.” This create a lose/lose stalemate. Bitterness and anger escalate.
It is surprising to people how explosive an emotional charge our sexual communication ends up being. To say, “its just sex,” minimizes its importance between people. Sex carries lots of meanings understood and not understood for couples. It creates many a great marital impasse. It can create the height of intimacy and yet be the most brutal power play that communicates the ultimate rejection especially when it happens frequently. At the same time, It can leave others feeling lonely and used if there are no other communications of value that go with it. This is one of those fights that tends to go under reported to marriage counselors. Its hard to admit we are playing tit for tat.
It’s pretty easy for a couple to get caught up in this marital knot. Solutions are out of sight other than calls for the other person to change. People plainly feel unrequited love and it is fed by feelings of unfairness.
We might ask ourselves what’s so important about fairness? Could we live or even flourish without fairness? We build a lot of fear around the idea of loving without expectation of return. What places, real or imagined, will this lead us? I’m not talking about enabling, or giving ourselves in an unwise way that really isn’t good for the other. I am talking about letting go and breathing into giving ourselves. There may be a new found liberation in this that is free from dependency. “I’m going to do the generous thing no matter what you do.” We discover we are bigger than who we thought we were. Its a satisfying feeling and frees us from one of the more potent marital knots.