It is good to have hope even in the most trying of circumstances. When you’re going through a rough patch in your relationship, hope can be like a ray of sunshine peeping through dark and stormy clouds. But it is important to differentiate between a rough patch and a relationship that does not leave the pits of darkness. During such times, we try our best to understand our partner and keep the relationship going. All the while, not realizing that what we’re actually doing is forcing ourselves to love someone who doesn’t want to be loved. Sometimes it’s best to let go. Here are 10 signs that indicate you’re forcing love where there is none.
1. You have to work hard at persuasion
There is no harm in having excellent persuasion skills. In fact, I encourage it. Similarly, having a reward-based system is great, too, if that’s what works for you. “You do the dishes,” you tell him, “I’ll treat you in ways beyond your imagination in the bedroom.” But when you constantly have to make an inordinate effort to persuade someone to do something that shouldn’t require much effort, something is not quite right. Having to bend over backward to gain someone’s approval, threatening someone in order to get them to comply, and growing accustomed to rejection are all indicative of a relationship that’s being forced.
2. You make all the compromises
You generally do what he/she likes; you go out when he/she likes, you even work your career around his/her needs. You are so used to hearing ‘no’ for most things, you’ve grown weary of even thinking of what you would like to do. Sacrificing your happiness has become the norm in your relationship. You even quit hanging out with your friends because he/she disapproves. Perhaps he/she is jealous, perhaps insecure, but you slowly have to give your happiness up a bit by bit and compromise on everything important to you to keep your relationship afloat.
3. Drama
There is a drama each time you do something that your partner disapproves of. It could even be the most trifling of matters, such as meeting up with an old friend. But your partner may build it up to a crisis and construct a story around it, that by the end of the entire argument you feel like he/she has built a brick wall around themselves that you find virtually impenetrable. And taking decisions in the future, whether or not pertaining to your relationship, have you feeling absurdly anxious.
4. You make all the plans…alone
It isn’t unusual to be so busy with work that one doesn’t find time to make plans. But when your partner is rarely, if ever, making plans with you, whether it is to pick a day for your next date, or make reservations, then that is not the sign of a healthy relationship. Making plans has been relegated to your shoulder…each time. And when you do make them by yourself, often he/she accepts, and other times declines, and you know deep down you don’t have a good feeling about it.
5. Your heart is constantly broken
Giving all of yourself to someone is easier said than done. Plenty of us tends to hold back just a little. But when you do finally give your all in a relationship, your expectations usually rise simultaneously. You’re human, after all. And when that trust is made light of, and your worth disregarded is when you know that you are simply compelling yourself to drag the relationship further.
6. You have to conform
Conforming yourself to fit the standards set by your partner is a recipe for a relationship not meant to be. It’s better to lose someone who wishes you to change for him/her than to continue to force yourself to love someone while slowly losing yourself over him/her. Trying to be someone you’re not in order to please another human being would eventually leave you with identity issues, a mass of regrets, and an exorbitant sum for the therapist’s bill. *
7. You obsess over the past
In a relationship where he/she doesn’t love you, and you’re forcing yourself to love him/her, it isn’t uncommon to find yourself woolgathering. More than likely, the subject of your ruminations and obsessions are the days gone by. When your relationship was better, and he/she gave a stronger impression of love, and things seemed easier. But you can’t continue to live in the past.
8. You have to ask how he/she feels constantly
I recall with striking precision the agony of never knowing how he felt. He had all but ceased to initiate conversations, and it had fallen to me to break the ice every now and then. When you have to try that hard to get someone to open up, and your relationship becomes a burden to either one or both of you, it’s better to let go.
9. You don’t talk about the future
You never discuss your plans for the future. It’s almost like some taboo subject. Sure, you’re thinking about it, but he/she never speaks in terms of ‘we’ and ‘us.’ It is always what he/she wants out of their life. You never seem part of the equation.
10. Confrontations are avoided
Confrontations are treated as a disease—something to be steered clear of, and never faced head-on. When someone repeatedly treats the relationship in such a manner, he/she does not have the depth of feelings for you that you wish they did, and continuing to remain in such a stagnant relationship would not bring either of you any happiness in the long run.
