How to Deal With Unrequited Love

Find the best way to get over and deal with unrequited love. These tips will help you recover the pain of one sided love and be friends with someone you like.

Being friends with someone you love is incredibly tough but achievable. You may have heard this in the movies that “Love is a magical feeling.” Yeah? Well, that only works when the other person loves you back. For those who are in friend zone with someone they love it’s just plain torture. Maybe the other person doesn’t know how you feel then you just look for signs and the anticipation of what ifs kills you.

And when they do know how you feel, but doesn’t feel the same way and still want to be friends than that is just plain old torture. But worse of them is when they are in a relationship with someone else and you can’t even tell them how you feel. In any case this is the person you love and if it is true love then you probably want them to be happy. And if you want them in your life even if it as a friend then you may need to make some changes and for that here are some tips deal with unrequited love.

Take Sometime Off

You can never be friends with someone you love instantly; you’ll need to take some time off. If you are in contact with the person you love everyday then you’ll do something regrettable, so it’s better to take some time off. Here are some things that you need to do while in time off.

First and foremost is to cut all contacts at least for the time being. But if you work together or are in a situation that you’ll need to communicate then it is best to minimize contact. This doesn’t mean that you start ignoring this person even if they are trying to talk to you. It just means that you don’t initiate contact and avoid chatting about anything other than the subject at hand. If you ignore this then you’ll be right where you began pining over your love or worse, so just minimize contact as much as possible.

Confirm your Feelings

Now that you have some alone time you can really take time to understand what you feel. Before going through what will be one of the toughest journey, one should confirm how they really feel. This will help in being friends with someone you love. If you are in love then you won’t be able to think about anything else but the one you love. Even though it may seem crazy but you’ll think about them even when you are talking about something else entirely. And if you are still confused then you should ask your closest and trusted friend or a family member and they’ll let you know as they knew about it before you did.

Accept your pain

Accept your pain. Acceptance is the key of what you are trying to achieve here. Never ever try to hide what you felt and it was okay to feel that way, after all you’re just human. Anyone who has been friends with the object of their attraction will tell you that there is no worse feeling than unrequited love, but believe me you need to feel it in order to get over it. So, accept the pain and stop blaming yourself for it because there is no one to blame here. Love sneaks in our heart and it’s no one’s fault and it’s quite natural to develop feelings for someone we care about. Once you accept and express then only you would mentally able deal with unrequited love.

Unrequited love is common

You need to understand that it’s okay to fall in love even when it doesn’t work out and even when it hurts. If you let this one bad experience completely change your perspective of love, relationship and friendship then you might never be able to go on with your life. Remember that even the mightiest of us have a fragile heart which can be broken in a blink of an eye. Just think about the other person feelings and how it was for them when you expressed your feeling and they didn’t felt the same way. They might be in pain too on losing a wonderful friendship. It’s okay to feel sad right now that’s what this time off is for but at some point you need to get back up and live your life.

Let it out

Don’t try to hide your feelings and pain by keeping up a happy face. If you really want to deal with unrequited love then you need to resolve your feelings and give yourself some time to grieve. Do everything that feels necessary shout, scream, and get in a brawl with your pillow anything that numbs your pain. But never enter into something destructive like an addiction of some sort or in a real brawl. Just to help you with this process here are some things that may feel and some positive ways to tackle them.

Emotional Burst

It’s natural to have emotional burst during recovery time otherwise you won’t be human. At times you will even feel like breaking stuff and that is what researchers say as you covering your pain with anger. But these are the times that you need to stop yourself from doing something destructive and start processing your pain. Anger is not the solution here; the solution would be to find out what’s the real reason for your anger. Know this anger is not a primary emotion there is always and that is your something that making you angry primary emotion masked by anger.

Identify what’s your primary emotion and you’ll not be angry anymore. Just listen to yourself talk when you get angry and you will see the real emotion. For some people its rejection, fear of loneliness, disappointment and at times even feeling ignored. But if you listen to yourself talk you would understand that none of this is really true. Another gentle reminder is that anger won’t ever help you to be friends with the one you loved, so if nothing else than do it for yourself to move on.

Talk about it

Stop ranting about it alone instead talk about this stuff with someone. It’s always better to have a shoulder to rely on when talking about hurt feelings. Talking about this stuff with friends and family will always make you feel better about it. They will help you see the way out. In addition getting all your frustration out in the open will only help you to resolve your feelings in a better way.

Contain it

While it’s okay to be sad and emotional in the beginning and it’s even good for you till certain limit. But there comes a point when it’s time to get back up and start living your life again. It doesn’t mean that you are not allowed to feel pain or anything it’s just so that you don’t let this heart break hold you back from future endeavors.

One way to get through it is to set a time beforehand and till that time you are allowed to feel anyway you want but after the time is up you need to get out there even if you don’t want to. Another way is to give yourself an out, it just means that you can take an hour daily to feel however you want but after that hour is up you have to force yourself to get back to normal. This way you will was able to resolve your feeling of love while keeping his friendship in check.

Relaxing Activity

Just take fifteen minutes daily to give your brain a time out and relax. Relaxing is essential for you as this helps you to further your struggle later. Some of the relaxing activities include meditation, massage and a bit different is laughing therapy. In laughing therapy you are suppose to laugh your ass off for no reason and at equal intervals of time and in the end it will make you feel better about yourself. Once you are able to understand that you both can be a couple, it will better help to deal with unrequited love.

Reach Out

Reaching out is for when you are comfortable enough that you can spend some time with each other without rehashing old wounds. So don’t rush into it take your time and once you are happy with your life as is then you can go forward with reaching out. This doesn’t mean it would be easy and it could bring back old memories but all this steps you have taken will help you to cope with unrequited love. When reaching out it’s better to take small steps first and then get into big stuff.

Group Hangouts

You may have heard the expressions “Baby Steps” well that’s what we are going to do here to get over unrequited love. Don’t just go out with the one you love for one on one meeting, that way you’ll just end up right back where you started. Instead try taking small steps before taking that leap of faith. Group hangouts or public meeting are best way for a quick first meet. This way, there are lots of distractions if you need and be prepared with an excuse to get out of there in case of emergency if need arises. Another thing about group hangout is that you can talk to other people too and are not forced to talk with your former love interest. Remember it’s going to be awkward before it can get comfortable.

Respect Boundaries

One thing that’s tough but important in unrequited love is to know where the boundaries are. Since you loved this person once that means you may have crossed the boundaries a couple of times. But now that you only want to be friends with this person there are going to be different boundaries for you. When you two were friends it was alright to get drunk together and have a blast, but now if you two get drunk together with no chaperone the chances of you crossing the line are pretty high. There are even things that you shouldn’t discuss like each others relationship status or other intimate stuff. I understand that this is not an ideal situation or the friendship you wanted but you need to respect the boundaries when you really want to deal with unrequited love.

Conclusion

Well, now you know how you know how to get over one sided love and be friends with someone you love. I know it’s not easy and it’s not the friendship you wanted but it’s the best you can get considering the situation. Understand that with time all wound heals and so will yours. Just remember that your goal here is not to get out of love with this person completely but just enough that you don’t want to get intimate with them. Because even friendship needs a certain kind of mutual respect and love.