It’s not an uncommon scenario to believe that you were in love. At least, that’s what you told yourself at the time. The feelings towards the person of your affection seemed overwhelming.
In the end, though, those feelings were actually misguided love. The other person didn’t share the same feelings as you had.
It was crushing to experience their rejection—to the point where you felt depressed. After all, coping with the aftermath of these emotional stirrings can be very difficult.
However, it is possible to move past the experience with the help of professional support such as depression counseling.
Let’s take a look at why it matters to know the roots of misguided love.
Why Did This Happen?
It’s helpful to understand why situations like this happened in the first place.
Often, it starts off as an undisclosed crush that you have on someone. In other words, they are feelings that you have towards another person in your life. Yet, you keep those feelings to yourself.
Perhaps it happened because you misinterpreted a response from the other person to you. Or, you had a conversation with that person that led you to believe that something more was possible. Either way, it led toward misguided love.
Understand the Impact
Consider the impact that the experience had on you. To help you identify the impact, you can break this down into two parts, including:
- What happened to you in the throes of the situation?Were you distracted by thinking of the other person? Did you feel nervous around them because you didn’t know how to interact with them?
- What was the impact, after the fact? When you learned of your misguided love, how did it make you feel? Were you sad for a day or two, but then able to move forward? Or, was the impact more lasting, perhaps for a couple of weeks or more?
Clearly, misguided love can have both short, and long-term consequences.
It Can Help to Locate Your Needs
Think about whether there were any needs you were attempting to meet through the misguided love.
Perhaps the most significant of those needs was experiencing love, understanding, and connection with another person. Make no mistake about it, this is an important need.
If you don’t feel connected to others, it can be the source of other problems such as depression. Therefore, when you think are in love with someone, you believe that you are working towards fulfilling that need.
Yet, when things fall apart, so does that perceived connection.
Identify What You Really Want
Knowing the roots of misguided love also means analyzing what qualities you are looking for in a person and relationship. When things don’t work out and the misguided love fizzles, it’s useful to study why it happened.
Where there any particular qualities about the other person that you admired? How can you keep those attributes in mind when another relationship presents itself?
Also, what can you do to forge a real and genuine connection that leads towards a meaningful love, not a misguided one? On the other hand, were you pursuing a misguided love because you were depressed or felt lonely? These are all important questions to consider.
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When you know the roots of misguided love, you can set yourself up for success for having a real relationship. Considering the above topics and questions is useful. However, it’s also important to find help.
If you’ve recently dealt with this type of situation, please reach out to me today. I would like to help you to create a genuine connection to others in your life without the familiar frustrations. Visit here to learn more about how I can help you.