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 don't mean to sound smug that I had a parent who loved me, I had another parent where this was far less straightforward although I accept now that their weird behaviour is their version of love! You apparently only need one person in childhood to love or value you to set this off well for adulthood, doesn't have to have been a parent, could have been an aunt or a teacher who thought you were great. It's those experiences that I remember when I think if I was either loved or valued.

I think that my own little family (partner and children) loves me. However I grew up in a very abusive household. At worst the abuse was mental/emotional and physical, at best, no one had any interest in me whatsoever. I eventually drifted away from them and have been so much happier.

No, you're def not alone.

who do you fiercely love @CherryBlossom321 but have never made you feel loved? Why don’t you talk to them?

Thank you, I appreciate your kindness and understanding of what I was trying to convey.

I commented originally as I related to the OP and some others on here, and wanted to offer reassurance it’s not just them. It’s not my thread; I don’t wish to divulge any more of my own specific personal information.

@PrizedPickledPopcorn thanks, I think you get what I'm on about

Me OP. My Mum was deeply damaged by her own Mother, my Father by his Father and his autism, which made him very cruel and dismissive. I couldn’t see the red flags in my own H due to my upbringing. I thought I had good friends but when I moved to another part of the UK only one stayed in touch and she is now sadly dead. I think it was the realization that my friend’s friendship was dependent on me being a ‘useful’ friend who was physically around that has most wounded me most deeply. It’s made me question everything I thought I knew and destroyed my memories of friendship and my sense of self.

I think quite a lot of people love me, even angry menopausal me. I’m no good at pretending so they all get real me.

I am very much the same. Although since my son's become older teens I have felt love from them.

However before this recent development I don't think I've been loved or "seen" by anyone but one sister. When we were young we were compared a lot and it made our relationship difficult but now we are very close.

One thing I do reflect on since my separation is whether my DH ever loved me. I think he loved the package of having a "home" with someone etc but took me for granted a lot. I think that I chose him because he was a little detached and I felt safer that he wasn't critical like my family of origin. Then after years realising that this aspect of his personality also made me feel unloved. At the end of our relationship I needed to go to hospital and he didn't want to pick me up after the general anaesthetic. I was devastated and felt so rejected. He swears that he loves me and that this separation "came out of nowhere" but I wonder if I subconsciously set tests looking for proof of no love. He used to forget my birthday and always cancel if it was a special occasion for me etc. and one day I felt my brain snap and we separated.

Have you unpacked this with a therapist OP?

Love is not a social construct though. Emotions are real. They are evolved and real, as much as legs and eyes are. The pragmatic reasons we have evolved to feel love do not undermine the existence of love, or its importance, in fact, if you think about it, they strengthen the reality of love. The pragmatic reasons we have eyes and legs, do not undermine the existence of legs either.

Emotions are essential to help animals exist in the world. All animals have them.

I came from a difficult background and as a result I had relationships with people that were abusive. I stopped surrounding myself with users, people that hurt me. Narcissists etc

I have a husband who absolutely adores me and I him, and two great children that love me and of course my dog.

I’m sorry you don’t feel loved. However I do feel that you have people that care about you and appreciate you.

Rather glib of me to say this, but I would get a dog that was 100% into me. We have more than one dog here but each dog has a favourite person. Mine is my shadow.

I had therapy for years about accepting myself as nothing I ever did was good enough. Now just being with my husband or my daughter is enough.

This. Parents were at best indifferent, and my intimate relationships have not lasted but my siblings and my dc love me, and I have good friends who have been there for me through difficult times.

I'm sorry you are sad OP. You just have to keep trying. Inviting people into your world, sharing things with them and some will stick around. It isn't easy. 💐

I agree.

I feel strongly loved. And I strongly reciprocate that love.

Only someone who does not feel loved nor love anyone themselves would have that PP’s view of love.

You’re not alone. ❤️

Me! I've never experienced unconditional love. My parents were strange and toxic. I then married a guy who was also emotionally distant (just like my dad)! So I can't imagine what it's like.

I know my Dad loved me but struggled to show it.
My exh I think loved the concept of me and how I could fulfull the role of wife and mother, but not me as a person.
My kids love me, I think, but in quite a selfish way?
My partner thinks I'm the best thing since sliced bread and has shown me what true love and acceptance feels like on the receiving end.
It's lovely, but sad that if I hadn't met him I may never have experienced it.
He is also teaching me how to love myself.

I hope you find it, OP.

I would happily be the kind of friend you needed OP, hopefully you find others who would do the same.

I hope you find love, OP.

I was not loved properly as a child. My dad was distant, my sister bullied me and my mum was irritated by me and made no move to protect me when I was being bullied by her or other kids. I didn’t have friends at all for some years in my childhood and my home life was unpredictable as to whether I would be accepted or tolerated, or whether someone would be having a go at me for some reason I didn’t understand.

I struggled with friendships and relationships for decades, feeling often desperately lonely, though also learning to be dysfunctionally self sufficient. I find / found it hard to trust, to be vulnerable. I expect in particular to be humiliated which is something I dread.

the father of my children never really loved me. I understand now that the rush of getting together with him was partly the familiarity of being inconsistently tolerated, which I knew from home, so his suspension of criticism or coldness at times felt like the sun coming out. he often mocked me. At home “teasing” me was considered de rigeur, and objecting was pathetic and itself to be mocked.

i am 54 now and things are different. I have some friends and I am loved perhaps by one or two of them. I feel my dads love more now we are all older and he is less mediated through my mum and the home environment. I understand that maybe my mum tried to love me and I have stopped caring that she wasn’t great at it.
Crucially my partner and kids love me very much. I believe he honestly loves me and I believe my teenaged daughters love me (he is not their dad). They are old enough to know me well and they know I am not perfect. They tease me kindly (quite different from hurtful mocking and the jibes and exclusion from my early family) a they are deeply, fundamentally on my side. My partner and I do not have a perfect relationship but he accepts me and loves me for who I am. It feels completely different and so do I.

that was long because I want th OP to feel that someone may, will love her if she gives the right person or people a chance

Ps one of the reasons I left the girls’ dad was that I didn’t want them to see his casual coldness towards, and disrespect of me as normal. Only now am I connecting that with what didn’t feel right to me in my initial family life: there is a dynamic in every family home that can be good or bad and sometimes is not to do with intentions of any individuals but quite small habits that can be rough, cruel or humiliating out of habit. I don’t think my parents should have allowed or helped to create a dynamic where I was allowed to be a sort of whipping boy / scapegoat / figure of fun character and they definitely did however much they intended to love everyone.
i realise now that the end of my relationship was a refusal to tolerate the same again. It’s the house / collective dynamic as much as as the individuals: is there love in this house for me? Now, there is

What a silly thing to say is a “fact”. Clearly from someone who doesn’t feel loved and doesn’t love, hence trying to convince themself that it’s no big deal because love doesn’t exist anyway

I have never been able to find romantic love despite one marriage and two long term bfs. But I’m kinda used to being on my own now, love my job, daughter, sisters and cats. So I get sad about it sometimes but am pretty much content with life now. Plus live in too small of a town to do dating apps.

Not even at the start of these relationships?

Sorry for not returning earlier or replying to those who interacted. I was pretty distressed when I wrote the OP and didn't feel robust enough for some of the first few replies. They felt at the time like I was being told it was my own fault I wasn't loved because I'm a fake person. Having re-read I do appreciate it was just advice and opinion that was based on what I'd written but what I'd written wasn't phrased to represent what I meant so that's my mistake. I think at the time I just wanted solidarity and sympathy and should probably have posted elsewhere for that!

I have now read through and want to say thank you for all responses (except that one who posted to explicitly list all the people who loved her - what the heck was that for 😂?). Thank you for sharing your stories and giving advice and empathy, it means a lot.

I don't really know what to do practically or even if I do want things to change. I'm occasionally lonely and I do get bitter about the bad start my family gave me, which shaped my personality (people pleaser, happy for the bare minimum) and the time, effort and resources relationships and friendships have cost me and prevented me from finding real loves. I also know being bitter is not healthy and the advice is to 'let it go' but even after 15 intermittent years of therapy and medication, I'm incapable).

I wfh, don't date and see the odd friend or group two or three times a month and speak to neighbours - I have my cats and my kid and his dad, and am mostly fine with this - I just get envious of those with more - one of my friends is a mum to 2 grown up girls and the love and care she shows them is so beautiful that comparing it to my mum is agony.

My parents are both alive though getting elderly and ill now. We are in touch but I very rarely visit because of how they've been - I've always felt the gulf between me and my brother but is only the last 5 years or so that I've started matching their energy. Any notion I had that this might make them realise I had a point was quickly done away with and they doubled down on keeping things from me and giving more and more to my brother and his family. There's been the odd time I've tried and made the effort like when my dad was in hospital but it's all knocked back in my face and I know (from a cousin) they all talk about me and think I'm self interested and uncaring and can't hold a family together (he cheated on me) - all of that is projection.

Time for the golden child to prove his worth by caring for them...how he is going to do this with no driving license, no job, no money, no practical skills or awareness of how the world and systems work will be interesting but they enabled him to be like that, so reap what you sow.

Thanks for letting me rant. Love to all experiencing similar.