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AnonymousWoman's avatar

Am I just unlovable...?

Asked by AnonymousWoman (6533points) April 16th, 2012

Although a certain ex-boyfriend of mine told me he loved me while he was with me, he told me sometime after we broke up that he’s never truly loved any girl. He also told another girlfriend of his after me that he didn’t feel anything for me.

In anger, another ex-boyfriend of mine told me while he was with me that he guesses he convinced himself he loved me, but he didn’t really.

Another ex-boyfriend of mine ended up breaking up with me and telling me that he wasn’t being completely honest about loving me.

The guy I like now only loves me as a friend…

I could go on, but basically this doesn’t really make me feel that great. Am I doing something wrong? Am I not worth falling in love with? And why have I been told I was loved if it was a lie?

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24 Answers

Bellatrix's avatar

It probably was the truth when they said it (or at least for some of them). When you first start dating someone and fall for them, that initial flush of infatuation can feel (and perhaps is) very much like love. It is heady and passionate and thrilling. Whether that infatuation will grow and become a deep love is something you can’t tell until it happens. If it doesn’t happen, sometimes people look back and say ‘that wasn’t really love’. They may even say this to hurt you because the relationship you had has ended. I don’t know why, but some people can be cruel once a relationship is over.

I think it would be a very rare person who is ‘unlovable’. I can’t think of a person I have met who I would describe in this way. Don’t let these disappointments make you lose faith in you. I don’t know you well but from what I have seen here, nothing about you suggests you are unlovable at all.

lillycoyote's avatar

Simple, straight forward answer? No, of course not. Of course you are not simply unlovable. I will leave it to others to go into more detail, but… once again… no, absolutely not, you are not unlovable. No one is. And I I suspect that there a billion people who would be more unlovable than you, even if there were such a thing as simply being unlovable.

zenvelo's avatar

It’s not that you are unloveable, but it seems you choose boyfriends that are not quite into “being in love” or even quite in touch with their emotions.

I don’t know your age, but I think that a lot of men up into middle to late twenties have an idea in their minds about “true love” and that when that feeling comes over them it will be for the person they marry. Until then they are in fear of commitment, and that fear is expressed as “not in love”.

The other factor is: how quickly do you say you are in love with them? People (both men and women) mistrust that if it is too soon in a relationship, and will respond with “I’m not in love with you.”

So it’s not that you are unlovable, but perhaps you need to look at if you meet a guy and think “this is it” or do you think “wow, I want to get to know this person and see where it leads.”

AnonymousWoman's avatar

^ If it helps any, I turned 22 earlier this year. With 2 of the ex-boyfriends I brought up, I said I loved them pretty fast. I don’t like the idea of being a guy’s girlfriend if I don’t love him. With one of the ex-boyfriends I brought up, I decided to keep it to myself until he said it first. After he said it, I said it. He still told me that he wasn’t being completely honest about loving me, even though I waited for him to say it first. =/ As for my best guy friend, it’s just so obvious. He could tell by my actions. They gave me away…

tedd's avatar

It sounds like you’re just dating douche-bags.

:)

LuckyGuy's avatar

Sit down, close your eyes, (after reading this, of course). Breathe. Now, think about what was happening before you broke up with the latest guy. Got it? What about the guy before him? And the guy before him? And…
Are you detecting a pattern? Is there anything significantly the same about all those guys? Are you picking guys that are all show? Are you picking only guys who only want to get into your pants? Are you jumping into bed too quickly and doing everything you see on the porn sites? Are you doing anything scary like: Texting 500 times a day? Calling all day long? Demanding larger and larger gifts, etc? Demanding all of their time? Are you incapable of supporting yourself and all that entails?
You need to look in the mirror and answer honestly. The best thing that can happen is if the problem is with you. Why? Because you have control over your own behavior. You can fix it.
You want and need to be loved. That means you are lovable. Got it?

AnonymousWoman's avatar

@LuckyGuy… My first boyfriend was an online boyfriend. I was 13 and he was 15. He’s said in the past that he always meant it when he said he loved me. I never met him. So maybe I wasn’t unlovable to him, but he’s never met me. I wonder if that would be different if he did?

I never kissed my second boyfriend. He’s the one who said he never truly loved any girl sometime after we broke up. I never even held hands with him when I was with him. I wanted to wait until my wedding day to kiss back then. We were both 15.

My third boyfriend definitely wanted to get in my pants. He is the one who said that in anger (“In anger, another ex-boyfriend of mine told me while he was with me that he guesses he convinced himself he loved me, but he didn’t really”). He became my boyfriend when I was 17 and he was 18. I still wanted to wait until marriage to lose my virginity while I was with him, but he was quite pushy and pushed me into doing certain things I didn’t really want to. I did love him, and although I broke up with him once, we did get back together. We broke up two times after that, both him doing the breaking up. At the time we broke up for good, I was 19 and he was 20. This relationship was really messed up, even though it was my longest one.

My fourth boyfriend was a friend of mine for quite a while. He was one of my closest guy friends. Family of his and friends of ours were encouraging us to get together. I didn’t originally want to date him and he didn’t originally want to date me, but we both fell into that pressure and wanted to make it work. We were both 19 at the time. We broke up after he turned 20.

I’ve never demanded gifts from my boyfriends. In fact, 3 of them never gave me any physical gifts. My third boyfriend gave me so many presents I found them overwhelming and wondered about ulterior motives. I’ve been warned that if a guy gives you a lot of gifts, he likely wants to get in your pants. I didn’t receive all of his gifts as well as maybe I should have.

I’ve never been guilty of calling a boyfriend all day long. In fact, it was rare for me to pick up a phone at all. I did talk to my fourth boyfriend on the phone for a really long time at least once, but I’m pretty sure that was the only time….

I don’t own a cell phone. I never have.

I didn’t always see them. They weren’t required to spend all of their time with me. This was a complaint all three of them had, actually…

2nd boyfriend: He told me one of his reasons for breaking up with me was that he didn’t really get to see me that much.

3rd boyfriend: He complained about my lack of seeing him. He wanted me to move out, be with him at night, sneak out on my parents, etc…

4th boyfriend: I remember him telling me in the past that his only regret about our relationship when we were together was never getting to spend the night with me…

LuckyGuy's avatar

Read the last line I wrote in the answer above That should give you comfort.
Ok, it looks like you are giving it thought. I won’t say what your did right or wrong . Maybe the only thing is expecting someone you met at a young age to be “the one”. At 15, 17, 19 very few people e3nd up with the same person for life.
May I make a suggestion? Engage in an activity you like. Go to meetup dot com and find something in your area. Anything. Are you healthy? How is your weight? Are you exercising and eating right? That is within your control too. Can you go to the park and jog? Find a group with similar interests and go. You will see most of the people there are single and are secretly thinking the same thing.
Do what you can to be productive, stay healthy, and capable of supporting yourself. Those are very attractive qualities.

ro_in_motion's avatar

First, and most important, HUG.

I don’t know if there’s a way to ‘test’ love other than making a commitment to give it a go and see how it works out. That takes time.

A question to ask yourself: were you perfectly happy with your loves when you were with them? If so, you might want to look at the ‘why’ of that. It’s so easy for us to be co-dependent: giving ourselves to someone and sublimating our own needs in the process.

One thing I strive for in my relationships are to not repeat the same mistake twice. I actually write out a relationship ‘inventory’ both while in a relationship and after one ends. I need to discover what was good, what was bad, and what I did to make the situation better/worse.

I am not perfect. I recently came out of an 8 year relationship that almost led me to suicide. Like, really close. I had ignored the inventory process until it was over. I realised I should have left after the first six months. I didn’t for a lot of very ‘good’ reasons that, as I said, almost caused me to end it all.

Lesson learned and I am more militant than ever in putting down in black and white what the good and bad points are on a 6-month basis. I so never want to repeat that mistake (or the others from earlier relationships again).

I guarantee you there’s a perfect mate out there just waiting for you to be ready. :)

Blackberry's avatar

I think you’re young, and your mistake is thinking young people just fall in love happily ever after. There’s more to life than trying to find love, why not concentrate on school and let love find you.

Charles's avatar

“Am I doing something wrong? Am I not worth falling in love with?” We don’t know. Maybe you are doing something wrong. You’re just an anonymous internet poster we know very little about.

CaptainHarley's avatar

You seem to be looking for love in all the wrong places. Perhaps you are unconsiously seeking out guys who will validate a poor self-image. Whatever the cause, you need to start dating guys who are unlike those you have been dating. Try looking for guys in places other than the ones where you found those losers. Everyone is worthy of love, the problem lies in finding it. Trust me, there’s some kindhearted guy out there who would cherish you. : )

zenvelo's avatar

Your “history” reveals a lot. The relationships you describe before the age of 21 should not even be considered when you think about your situation. And right now it’s not a matter of you being lovable (you are), it’s a matter of you learning what it mean and takes to be in a relationship.

Keep dating and have fun, and don’t think of it as looking for The One.

marinelife's avatar

Why are you assuming that there is something wrong with you (except perhaps in the men you pick)?

You should look at what kind of guys you are attracted to. Are they men who cannot love? Is that a familiar pattern from your childhood? How is your dad?

You are lovable and you deserve love. Don’t settle for less.

AshLeigh's avatar

I think after people break up, and they don’t love someone anymore, it’s hard to imagine that they ever did in the first place. So they assume that they didn’t really love them at all.

CaptainHarley's avatar

@AshLeigh

Or… they don’t know what love is.

WillWorkForChocolate's avatar

No, you are definitely not unlovable. Perhaps you have just been dating a lot of jerks. Smile and breathe. (((hug)))

deni's avatar

How long were these 3 relationships?

AshLeigh's avatar

@CaptainHarley, perhaps. I was speaking from experience though. I know what love is, but sometimes it’s easier to pretend you never loved someone, than to admit that they once meant something to you…

Pandora's avatar

I have seen too many low life people fall in love and have others fall in love with them to ever believe that some people are not lovable. So unless you are nuttier than the mad hatter, or a murder, or thug or uglier than a blow fish, or way too, too clingy, than I would say you are loveable.
You just keep betting on the wrong horse. Looking back on my past relationships, I realized I was never really in love. Only one time before my husband. But once you experience the real thing than you know what you should’ve felt in the relationships prior. Till it happens for real, you are only infatuated.

john65pennington's avatar

I hope that by now, you have learned that the guys will tell you anything, just to get what they are after. Once they win the prize, then it’s on to someone ese and another challenge.

Please tell me you now understand this !!

DaphneT's avatar

You are loveable. Period. No one else can love you better than yourself. When you meet The Guy, he will love himself, be content and confident in his own life choices and you will feel that reflected on yourself. You will be reflecting your own contentment and confidence onto him. When that happens, then the two of you love each other and do not need to be in love.

Be strong in the knowledge of your contentment and confidence, the rest will come to you when it will.

likipie's avatar

Nobody is unlovable, you just haven’t found the right person to love you yet.

Paradox25's avatar

Unfortunately many relationships are based upon ego and pride vs any true feelings or love (yes I’ve seen enough of them to say this). Getting hurt isn’t as ‘cool’ as being the one doing the hurting, afterall being the one who is hurt is the more vulnerable position to be in. This is why it is considered much more acceptable to admit that you were the one to end the relationship rather than the one who was dumped.

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