When You Love Someone More Than They Love You

When you love someone more than they love you, you feel that your words of affection and deeds of love and care aren’t being reciprocated or reciprocated the way or to the extent you want them to be.

Deep inside, you feel that your love tank is running dry and that your partner isn’t doing enough to make you feel loved, cared for, and respected as a romantic partner. He or she is instead focusing on matters outside of the relationship and by doing so, making you hungrier for bonding and validation.

Because you’re always hungry for an emotional connection, your insatiable hunger for love makes you think that the relationship is much more important to you than it is to your partner and that your partner could walk away without any repercussions.

You believe that your partner wouldn’t suffer from separation anxiety, depression, and other inconveniences you as an attached person would suffer from. That’s because a person suffers the most when he or she has a strong connection with someone who doesn’t reciprocate feelings.

Such a person will go through the breakup stages of a dumpee (stages of grief) and will need months of time to accept the breakup, fall out of love, and stop feeling the need to be validated. The worse his or her self-esteem, ambitions, support system, and emotional strength are, the longer the healing will take.

So if you love your partner more than your partner loves you, know that a little bit of difference in emotional reciprocation is okay and acceptable. Some people are more expressive than others and show love in different ways.

Guys, for example, can be quite prideful and may not be as verbally expressive as women. They often prefer to show their affection with actions and physical touch. Women, on the other hand, (generally speaking of course) expect guys to be very open about their feelings and want them to act like them.

That’s why they pin their expectations on their boyfriends and feel rejected or unimportant when love doesn’t come back to them the way they want it to.

That means that people differ in the way they express, want, and expect love. Some people want more love (affection) whereas others find a lot of affection suffocating. They think they must return the same amount of love that they receive even though they don’t feel the desire to express that much love.

If they were to express it, they would be forcing themselves because they find highly emotional conversations and declarations of love emotionally draining. People with avoidant attachment styles or those with combinations of this style know what I’m talking about.

They feel boxed in by their partner and wish they could invest less in their partner and more in themselves.

Sometimes we judge people by their actions and inactions, but in doing so, we forget to remember that people work differently from us. They may not always show us they love us as much as we do. Especially not when we’re struggling emotionally and want them to love us the most.

They could be dealing with personal problems that hinder them from thinking about professing their love and being lovey-dovey with us.

People in a relationship could be dealing with:

• stressors
• grief
• family problems
• financial issues
• depression
• a loss of direction
• a loss of self-esteem
• and an unprocessed past
• and much more

If we expect our partner to love us deeply when he or she is struggling to love himself or herself, we could quickly overwhelm our partner and force him or her to initiate the breakup.

Although people generally cling to their partner when they’re dealing with problems, this isn’t true for everyone. Many people prefer to be alone—and at their own pace internalize their emotions and problems.

This is how they can remain in control within and appear strong to the outside world.

In this post, we discuss what it means when you love someone more than they love you.

So if you love someone more than he or she loves you, this isn’t the most uncommon thing. Most people don’t even know what love is. They think they love their partner when their life is falling apart and they’re crying their hearts out, asking for help.

But when they’re back on their feet, they stop expressing gratitude and emotions and thinking that their partner is important to them. That, unfortunately, isn’t love, but clinging to a person for emotional support when it’s needed.

What most people mean when they say they love their partner more than their partner loves them is that their cravings aren’t being met. They’re being neglected, feeling unfulfilled, fulfilled differently, or just feeling underprioritized.

If you feel that you love your partner more than your partner loves you, figure out why you feel that way.

Once you figure it out, you’ll understand if your expressions of love or expectations of the relationship are different, if you’re too dependent on your partner, or if you need to communicate better and work on the relationship with your partner.

However, if you discern that your partner doesn’t treat you well and/or that your partner doesn’t want to or isn’t capable of helping you feel loved, then you should probably leave the relationship and find someone more open-minded and better-suited for you.

You basically need to make sure you understand yourself and your partner’s reasons for not making you feel equally loved.

Why do you love your partner more than he/she loves you?

You should start by asking yourself why you love your partner more than your partner loves you. Is your partner hurting you and acting like he or she is single or are you expecting your partner to love you differently (similarly to how you love him or her)?

What about your life outside of the relationship? Are you hanging out with friends and family frequently, engaging in hobbies, going to work/studying, and pursuing your dreams and goals?

If you are, your partner is probably not loving you the way you want to be loved or not doing enough to show you that he or she loves you. You need to talk about it with your partner.

But if you don’t have a strong life outside of the relationship and are generally happy, then you could be over-depending on your partner for happiness and self-love.

Codependence kills attraction and destroys relationships from within and makes the dumper fall out of love and causes the dumpee excruciating pain and overwhelming depression.

Another reason you may love your partner more than yourself/your partner loves you is that you’re stressed, anxious, or depressed and rely on your partner for all your problems.

Although there’s nothing wrong with confiding in your partner and relying on him or her occasionally, the truth is that too much reliance will likely overburden your partner.

It will put your partner under pressure and cause him or her to think and feel unwanted thoughts and emotions.

You need to develop your strength to tackle problems as your partner may not be resilient enough to love you “unconditionally.” Keep in mind that there is no such thing as unconditional love. We all enter relationships under the condition that we’re happy.

And we can be happy if our partner contributes to our life about as much as he or she takes from it. If you just take, take, take, your partner might not see a reason to put in the effort and could slowly detach.

So take care of your emotional and mental health! Don’t expect your partner to do it for you. He or she may not have the strength or the power to do that. It’s healthier and also safer for you to be (emotionally) independent.

Self-love and self-reliance are not just healthy but also required for attraction and connection to grow.

Yes, oftentimes people are being neglectful and not doing enough to show love in a relationship. But other times, the person who feels neglected is “at fault” because he or she had made his or her life’s purpose to laser-focus on the relationship.

Such a person could overburden the relationship with love and expectations and watch his or her partner pull away and self-prioritize. That would devastate him or her, trigger unbearable separation anxiety, and cause physical withdrawal symptoms such as nausea and vomiting.

With that said, here are 9 reasons why you might love your partner more than your partner loves you.

I can’t say what exactly is causing you to love your partner more than your partner loves you without hearing your story. But luckily, you don’t need me to understand what’s going on. The infographic above most likely has the reason or reasons your partner doesn’t love you the way or as much as you want to be loved.

My advice is to find that reason so you can then decide if you can reduce your craving for love or fulfill it (with your partner’s help). If you can’t find a viable solution, staying in a relationship with your partner would be a bad idea.

Not only would you stay unhappy, but you’d also get more and more dependent on your partner for love. Eventually, you’d get so attached to your partner that you’d force your partner to do something mean or impulsive to directly or indirectly hurt you.

That would make you more anxious and codependent on your partner for happiness.

So before you make a decision that changes your life, analyze your situation and understand it clearly. You may not have to leave a person you love more than he or she loves you if you need to work on yourself or if your partner is willing to listen learn, and/or adapt.

You may just need to work on shortcomings/mentality/mental health problems/stressors/ and the relationship in ways that make you both feel loved.

Don’t be afraid of an unfulfilling relationship ending

If the relationship isn’t strong enough and capable of growing, it’s going to end whether you’re 100% committed to it or have one foot out the door.

Relationships require willpower and commitment from both parties.

If someone loses interest or takes his or her partner for granted, the other person becomes anxious and in turn, gives his or her partner more of what he or she doesn’t need.

That’s why you need to keep in mind that you won’t be able to fix your partner’s issues alone. All you’ll do is create more problems and learn that your partner doesn’t love you (isn’t prepared to fall back in love with you).

Such a relationship isn’t worth “saving” because there’s nothing to save. Couples save relationships when they’re still together and want to make things work. They may not feel the strongest feelings of love, but they still possess the desire to persevere and stick together.

If you feel that you did everything in your power to communicate your concerns and express yourself properly multiple times but the issue persists, it may be best to end things right away. This is easier said than done, of course, but a person who doesn’t make you feel loved or isn’t willing to change early on won’t change later either.

He or she will just continue to hurt you and make you question your place in his or her heart.

Such a relationship needs to end as soon as possible. Staying in it out of fear is bad for your happiness and well-being.

You deserve someone who listens and wants to grow with you. A person like that might still make you feel unloved occasionally, but at least you won’t feel like you’re constantly doing everything alone.

If you’re always professing love and investing in the relationship without receiving much in return, you’re letting your partner know that he or she can relax and let you do all the work.

So try to avoid giving that impression by communicating with your partner and making sure you’re on the same page when it comes to giving and taking.

This is important otherwise there could be a significant power imbalance.

Did you learn how to act when you love someone more than they love you? Do you think your partner loves/loved you less? Post your story below the article and we’ll get back to you.

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