Love unrequited is something so painful to feel that it blinds you of any other possibility.
Maybe that's for the best. The person you love hurts you with only one sentence: "I can't trust you anymore," It's one conversation you play over and over in your mind. Why don't they trust you? What did you do? You loved them. You told them that. Then when you weren't able to be there when they demanded, they say that months of trust have evaporated in an instant. But this was once out of many. You HAD been there for them countless times before. What makes this one mistake- this one time you're emotionally vulnerable and unavailable so different? Why always you?
Maybe that person had every intent to do better. To be better.
But because when you ask "is that what you really meant to say?" a week later, and they double down on it, saying "yes,"- how are you supposed to read that as anything other than the end? Maybe you should have waited to hear how they felt after the time had passed. Maybe you shouldn't have tried to see what was still there in the interim. Maybe you shouldn't have been afraid to speak up sooner.
But you loved them. You told them you loved them, and they were too hurt to hear it. They unknowingly strangled you with their own brambles, and stomped all over you. Your love went unrequited. Who knows if they felt the same; they sure as hell didn't make you feel that way.
Now every chance to talk turns into a game of "who breaks into tears first?" and they're always the winner. They call you vitriolic for putting up boundaries, because they hurt YOU. They sob like an infant when YOU tell them you can't do this again, and THEY tell you that all they wanted was to rebuild with you in the center of it all.
If that's what they really wanted, then why wasn't it said sooner? You gave them time. You gave them chances. You have the right to be mad, to be upset, to put up boundaries.
Does unrequited love really blind you, or does it reveal just how much you've given to a person for the sake of THEM? Does it really just show how much of your own needs you've forsaken in the name of someone else's comfort, for the sake of being with them?
I think so. Unrequited love is the worst kind of pain. But it's sometimes the best kind of wake-up call.
