To ask if anyone else feels like they have never really been loved?

[RamsaySnowsSausage]

My parents "love" me but it's always been dependent on my looks/actions/achievements. Any problems I had were 'of my own making' and any sadness or hard times including rape, robbery and infidelity were really 'my fault and issue to deal with'. My brother is, of course, a delicate soul who needs protection and provision well into middle age while doing nothing but leech.

I've had long term relationships including one marriage but they all ended when I became unable to meet their needs 24/7 due to studying, working or childcare. Either they cheated so I left or they abused me until I left.

I have also been betrayed and abandoned by friends. Not all, but many.

I keep playing the games and being what family/partners/friends want but the second I break character and be an actual person with weaknesses and needs, no one is there.

I do largely keep peace and have nice friends and colleagues...as long as I always ask about them and remember their details while fully accepting that no person on earth, including my immediate family knows fuck all about me. My parents might know the town i live in, my son might know my allergies, my colleagues probably know my job role but there's zero cross over. If I went missing, no one would be able to give an accurate description of me and my life.

I honestly don't want pity or any advice on how to win friends and influence people but has anyone else experienced the same? I'm so sad.

I haven't had all of your life experiences (I'm so sorry for what you have experienced) but I do know what you mean. I have felt loved, in some circumstances, but it hasn't been healthy - my exH 'loved' me - and I do believe he did - but he was abusive and destructive and destroyed large swathes of my life.

My parents loved me but it's complicated and not easy to view through the prism of how we parent today. My 'D'M (DF has now died) is pretty horrific to me now and makes it fairly clear she doesn't much like me.

DC are teens, they love me but in terms of what you are asking for in your OP - they aren't able to really give that and that's perfectly natural, as it is for your DS.

This can sound trite and cliched but it's still true - I've had many conversations with my counsellor about this - it can only start with yourself: you must love you, and when you have that genuine self-love and self-esteem, you will draw the right kind of people to you, and not chase the love you are looking for from the wrong people (who won't / can't give it). Not easy of course to do.

including my immediate family knows fuck all about me. My parents might know the town i live in, my son might know my allergies, my colleagues probably know my job role but there's zero cross over. If I went missing, no one would be able to give an accurate description of me and my life.

I was feelling like this after a trip back to Mums - she was very ill. I think it was because I clearly wasn't fitting in role she and siblings think I should and don't really want to know who I am. I also finally admitted I just don't like my siblings and debating if very LC should be NC going forward def with one possible with other.

Dad when alive love me but never wanted to know me either - all of them so busy telling me who I am and getting nasty when I'm not.

Youngest child proably knows me best - and that will likely change when she leaves for uni - but eldest DD seems to be trying more to connect as an adult to adult.

DH knows a bit but frankly do think should know more about my likes and dislikes - but read an article recently that made me wonder if it was partly my fault - my parents critized pretty much everything and IL can be similar with me and that can leave you hiding a bit - though took his mate taking micking him to remember how I took my tea and we'd been together a decade by then.

I do think DH loves me as do kids - though kids it's partly the Mum role - and that's okay. I'm not sure I should expect them to fill everything else I need in life - and I am at point do need to look beyond this point in my life and work out what I want again for next stage.

do they not show you their live? @CherryBlossom321

i too love fiercely but I do very much feel it’s reciprocated

They weren’t true friends @Lizzbear

So I take it you don’t feel loved
and you don’t have children
and you have had one hell of an awful relationship history
@Iwearaberet

because every word of your Op seems utterly daft to me

@Hiyoulookgood ,as I said in my post I'm later diagnosed autistic, autistic people often see things very literally,
No I don't have children,and yes my relationship history isn't great, autistic women are not great with people and often enter into abusive and coercive relationships, because they can't read others intentions.
Sorry that's daft to you,it's my life.

Yes, me too. Partly because of a narc mum and enabling dad. They put each other first. Partly because my family now is quite nd, I feel they don’t really know or think about me much, take me for granted.
But my dc are appreciative of what I’ve given them- life skills etc, good parenting. They just don’t need me or feel warm and fuzzy towards me. Which is sad. But I’ve learned to be totally self sufficient. It’s easier.

Fair enough
but if you reread your op you don’t write it as your view. You write it as though you are stating facts that apply to all.

Which patently is daft. Very daft @Iwearaberet

It isn’t daft to recognise that we are a bundle of chemical processes that we ascribe values to. Love is a bit nebulous as a term. You can’t objectively test for it, we don’t experience it the same way or behave the same as a result. It varies from ‘standing between your child and danger’ sacrificial love, ‘wanting to jump your bones, hate being apart’ sexual love, ‘bringing you a morning cuppa every day for 40 years’ committed love…

Her perspective isn’t wrong or daft. Just unusually analytical and pragmatic.

I said that to convey her own view as facts is daft. Re read the post I’m referring to

I haven’t felt that anyone truly loved me, since my father died 36 years ago.

Surely your children if you have?

But it is a fact. It isn’t daft. It’s a perspective you don’t share but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a fact. Love is a social construct. I don’t want to derail OP’s post so I’m not going to argue with you, but your post was really insensitive to the woman you were challenging.

Oh I have just read your initial response to the OP’s question. Explains yours and @Iwearaberet stance on this

very different initial response to my response to the OP’s question- hell yes I feel truly
Loved and hell yes I truly
love others!!

My parents don't love me - they aren't capable of it. What I realised as an adult is that their treatment of me led to me choosing self-centred friends who saw me as a ready supply of support. They had no interest in me as a person whatsoever and if I ever sought any support from them they would quickly ditch me. I would reject or dismiss truly kind people because they got too close to seeing the real me.

Along came my DH - the kindest person in the world. I tried really really hard to push him away - including breaking up with him and making his life a misery for months on end while he tried (very kindly and gently) to get through to me. It was only when he finally walked away that I realised what a mistake I was making and asked to get back together. By rights he should have said I was a nutter and told me to f off but he immediately said yes. We've been together 24 years and he truly loves me. He knows everything about me, he champions me and encourages me, I know he likes being around me because he lights up. I feel seen by him, which is actually quite an unnerving experience when you've grown up with parents who look right through you.

The point of all that is to say that having dysfunctional parents teaches you to engage with people in a certain way and you end up being attracted to people who may appear 'nice' but who replicate what you're used to - self-centredness, indifference etc. When your need for more inevitably rises up, you then discover the reality of those people. When that's repeated over and over it can seem like everyone is like that or you're destined never to find anyone decent.

I can tell you that is 100% not true. Incidentally my best friend did something similar to my DH - hanging in there when I tried to push her away. She foisted help upon me when my DD was little because she could see I was struggling. We've been friends now for 14 years. She loves me and I love her.

The point is, it is absolutely possible to be loved, having come from a start with no love but you have to start with yourself and look at the thoughts and beliefs that are causing you to choose the wrong people. As someone else said - you also have to learn to love yourself and to root out the messages your parents gave you about your value. I haven't quite managed that but I'm working on it.

I always had a sense of not really being loved as a child particularly by my father, but thought it was just me. Well the chickens really came home to roost when he dropped the mask as he aged and revealed himself to be a nasty cruel narcissistic man who one by one cut off me and my siblings and it has been very upsetting, but ultimately healing to realise this is where it all stems from.

Therapy/ counseling helps. I learnt that really the only true love is inside yourself.

I think my mother loved me- but she never had much time for me. My father made it obvious when I was younger that I was a nuisance and got in the way. He ignored me a lot of the time. Our relationship improved somewhat over the years but the early scars remained.
My relationship with men were exploitative and abusive. I was diagnosed autistic later in life and it explained so much. I now stick with cats!
But one thing that bemuses me is that I have 3 friends who seem to genuinely love me - god knows why but I am so grateful for them

@Whyarepeople is spot on. You’ll be subconsciously attracting people who draw on your energy as an independent, dependable and helpful person who doesn’t make many demands of them. And in that sense it isn’t really about you OP, these type of people will move onto the next person giving them what they want. I feel the same but by asserting my needs more (I mean like leaving an event when I’ve had enough and not always staying because I feel I should) and being vulnerable I’ve met a few people where the relationship is more balanced. I think the only exception is your DC, they need you to love them and they will love you back but it won’t be in the same way you love them. You needed that one way love from your parents but they couldn’t give that to you.

Also, the but about 'friends' turning on you when you ask for support really resonated. My so called best friend of 20 years who I'd supported through infertility and divorce suddenly turned on me when I had some problems and dared to ask for her support. Looking back, this is when the relationship turned on its head she was utterly nasty and made me feel like it was all my fault and I deserved it.

Luckily I think I've broken the pattern now, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel, if you are ready to put in the healing work. Good luck.

I don’t experience it, no.

After all your difficult experiences in life and your efforts to get help, I wonder if it's now time for you to just be yourself without being considerate of your family and friends - just be you. Nobody really knows me either, and there are many of us just playing a role. I don't know why we feel the need to do this for so long a time. I'm no-one special, I just find it hard to be myself. I'm a fairly closed off individual, so playing a role masks that and allows me to hide my true self.

I wonder if group therapy would be useful? Being able to share with other people in similar situations

It does sound contrived/fake, though, as if you are playing the part of whom you believe everyone else wants you to be.

I never felt loved and rarely believed I was liked (thanks, parents!) until I had kids. I let myself live them and they quite clearly adored me when they were little, which was very healing.

Now they are getting older I am watching myself carefully to ensure I don’t get clingy and weird or expect too much of them. It’s not their job to fill in for all the selfish arseholes/damaged people in my life. But it’s a struggle. They provide 90% of my oxytocin with the pets providing the rest!

I always knew other parents loved their kids: I could see it in my friends’ families. Unfortunately knowing my parents didn’t love me meant I assumed the fault was mine and I carried that through to adulthood. It wasn’t my fault. I was even a cute kid.

I think if you are loved as a child, you are primed to see love as an adult, and unfortunately if you aren't loved very well as a child, even when it's staring you in the face you can't see it.

I believe that lots of people love me, and I know I definitely love them. When my husband died it was the worst feeling I'd ever felt and I had a lot of difficulty carrying on without being able to love him and have that love in return.

I don't think love is transactions and hormones, but if you are not primed to see love then you won't see it.

I think being in calming environments, with loving pets, with people who care for your wellbeing, having lots of 'weak' social connections (where people are interested in you but aren't in your primary circle), works to some extent.

When I'm depressed, I can't feel the love from my cat. When I'm happier and not depressed, I can feel the cat adores me in the moment, even though half an hour later they are ripping up my furniture and not interested in me in the slightest.

Being attuned to love is a skill, you have to kind of get 'love goggles' on and see when people are loving you (e.g. your children rushing home to show you something, or snuggling in, or just coming to see you because there's no real reason) but also when people are not- and I think that's why a lot of people end up rejecting the notion of love as they don't realise you have to remove yourself from not-loving partners or behaviour and so it all gets muddled up for them.