The Spirituality of Unrequited Love

[Andrea22]

I am in love with a man that I can never be with. He’s not married or anything like that. We were in love, wanted to marry eachother, but things went terribly wrong, I hurt him deeply and now he wants nothing to do with me.

I pray to Jesus to help me suffer through this.

The pain I feel inside makes me want to lash out. Hurt others and hurt myself. (not physically, but verbally) I feel like the story of the demon possessed man in Mark 5,1:11.

Has anyone been through anything like this and have risen above it to God’s glory?

I found this article below that was a good start. This is exactly what I feel. The more I love him the more his rejection hurts. And this is how I imagine that Jesus felt on the cross. I have grown closer to him through my pain.

**
The Spirituality of Unrequited Love**

2/6/2005 - 8:00 AM PST

By John Mallon
© 1993, 2005 by John Mallon

Unrequited love feels like death. In fact, there are times when death would seem preferable to the unrelenting pain and frustration. There are those, even in the Church, who would seek to minimize or make light of this most unique agony: “Oh, don’t worry about it! Women (or men) are like street cars, there’s another one along any minute!” Like Hell. I don’t think there is any other pain quite like that of unrequited love, especially when rejection is involved, although that might even be preferable to being strung along with hopes raised and dashed with punishing regularity. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a wish fulfilled is the tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)

Even the death of a loved one has a clean finality to it, and, normally, is not a deliberate choice on the part of the other to be free of you. Advice from others all sounds cliché. Especially from those well meaning but insensitive vocational terrorists who zoom in with, “Well, maybe God wants you for himself! Have you considered that possibility?” As if you haven’t. Besides, someone heartbroken from rejection, grief, and loss is in no mood to have the joys of celibacy preached at them. The subject of vocation is holy ground where we take off our shoes and tread softly, not go charging in with golf cleats and glib answers. Especially when it’s someone else’s vocation. Unrequited love is real valid agony. And no one has a right to rob you of it so cheaply, especially if they’re stacking false guilt over “not following God’s will” on top of it. It must be endured. And can be.

Unrequited love is the very pain of God. The Crucifix is a snapshot of unrequited love. God doesn’t minimize this pain. Suffering it can be a profound identification with Christ’s pain over the lack of appreciation He receives from His Bride. Suffering can be an expression of love and profound sanity. Without love all is demonic chaos. In A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis said he never imagined grief felt so much like fear. And so it should. Grief follows separation and echoes the ultimate calamity of separation from God. As the unity of man and woman in one flesh mirrors the image and likeness of God, so too the separation of man from woman conjures the cruelty and fragmentation of Hell. But some loves must die, if they are not from God they are not really loves anyway, but still it hurts, like Hell. All death hurts like Hell, because God did not make it. (See Wisdom 1:13-14) But He did redeem it by entering into our separations.

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This article originally appeared October 14, 1993, in the Troubadour, the student Newspaper of Franciscan University of Steubenville. It also appears in the unpublished collection Common Sense Spirituality: A Catholic Guide to Avoiding Spiritual Nonsense, by John Mallon

Contact: John Mallon
catholic.org OK, US
John Mallon - Author, -
Keywords: Unrequited love, spirituality, heartbreak, relationships, break-ups

 

[homewardangel]

I’m sorry that you are hurting. I do know how you feel, while I never was actually in a relationship with the person whom I suffer for - its never to be all of the same. I don’t understand why. Believe me I would gladly move onto someone else. This love is definitely the cross that I bear in life.

I don’t get angry at other people. When I allow myself to feel anger, its God that I am angry at. I don’t understand why He put me in this situation. Why he allows others to find love and to be loved, but not me. My mind can tell me that maybe I am doing something wrong - but my heart tells me that I was set up by God - which causes me alot of pain and anger.

I don’t have an answer, but you are not alone.

Terry

 

[TOP]

This is the first lesson the Lord showed me when I asked Him to help me love as He does. How He must hurt! Hang in there. Tim

 

[Promises]

Chances are, someone else WILL come along and you will move on with your life, but I suspect that person you speak of will always be a part of you. (I know what your feeling. It’s been 17 years since I made the painful decision not to marry the man I feel was my “true love”. I can only say that it gets easier with time, but I can’t say that it goes away completely.)

It is very important to forgive yourself in whatever part of this relationship you feel responsible for hurting. You must remember to love yourself and pray to God in earnest to find resolve within your heart. It is a process, however, you cannot live in the past with this heartache. Eventually, I suspect you might even become friends with the feelings of love you have for this person. It will be a part of you, but you cannot allow yourself to dwell in that pain for too long. Long term, it will not serve you or God’s plan for you here.

God Bless,
Andi V.

 

[MacRath]

Thank you for posting this; I came across it myself- and it summed up what I felt really, but was afraid was just another foolishness of mine, or my ego, because I have more in common with a monkey than Christ. I hope you have found healing in the months since you posted this…

…Misery doesn’t love company unless there’s lots of alcohol- but I have felt just as you expressed yourself… I offer you a paraphrase of a prayer from a somewhat cheesy cd of music for the Irish legend of Liadain and Curithir…

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.

Christ before you
Christ within you
Christ above you
Christ below you
Christ behind you
Christ to the right of you
Christ to the left of you

The love of the angels and saints surround thee.

 

[beckycmarie]

Dear Andrea,

I know the pain of unrequited love all too well. My experience with it involved a friendship when I was 23 that I desperately wanted to become something more, and it just wasn’t meant to be. The heartbreak when he found a girlfriend (who eventually became his wife) was was worse than the grief I’ve experienced at the death of loved ones. It was a crushing, devastating heartache.

Afterwards I couldn’t help but ask, “What was the point of that, God? What am I supposed to have learned from that?”

The answer for me came, suprisingly, in this profound line from a silly movie, Bruce Almighty:

Bruce: How do you make someone love you without affecting their free will?
God: Heh, welcome to my world, son. If you come up with an answer to that one, you let me know.

That line of dialogue affected me deeply.

I learned that the pain I felt was just a tiny taste of what it’s like for God when I choose not to love Him by choosing sin. That torture of mine was *nothing *compared to what Christ experienced in Gethsemane, knowing that there would be souls who would not be saved because they would refuse to love Him.

But, I’ve learned that in that suffering was a tremendous gift in learning about how to love God, a lesson I would not have gotten had I not had the experience.

 

[ghaybyers1]

Oh boy, do I know where you’re coming from. Except, the other way around… I was engaged (this all happened very early in the engagement, what I’m about to say) to what I thought was an amazing, devout Christian man who morphed into something else entirely when the ring slid on my finger. All of a sudden, the thoughtful and prayerful man I knew was something entirely different- a child who quit his job and refused to work, hit me when it pleased him, expected engagement to equal sex (how!? why!? I still struggle with that one) and began to try to control my life. As the weeks passed on, phone calls were expected when I got to work, during my breaks at work, when I left work. The breaking straw was when I got the stomache flu and was literally incapacitated to attend services one Sunday- my former fiance flew off of his handle and accused me of many things, yelled and screamed at my sister, and then left a threatening voicemail that he was outside my house.
I called him to tell him that his behavior was unacceptable, and he verbally berated me and said “maybe his mother was right, you (meaning me) are just a (we’ll substitute harlot)”
In my flu ridden state, I called it off at that moment. What a gift from God that was, the strength to do that, because his behavior worsened and worsened to the point where I had to get a restraining order for him.

What I’m trying to get at, in such a long and roundabout way, is that I still love my former fiance with all my heart. If he was the man I knew him to be before he “changed” I would likely be married and hoping for a child by now. What would I have done with a husband like that? What would my life have been? It pains me to no end to know that I was the one who ended the relationship- I understand your feelings.
But I’ve slowly come to learn that this was God’s way of making me wait for something better. It hasn’t come yet, but it will. I have hope- and I will pray for you to have the same.

 

[Coreopisis]

I too have one of these stories, but I realilzed something along the way that made the pain I felt receed a lot.My guy I loved dearly and due to some things he did I had to end it but my love for him never ended.* Sometimes I would think of him and my heart would ache.* But I’ve not seen him in years.* What I need to remind myself is that people are constantly changing.* The man I fell* in love with is gone and has been replaced by the man he is now.* I can’t honestly say to myself that I know that I would still love him the same.* This helps me.

 

[Andrea22]

Thank you all for sharing your stories with me. May God bless you.

9 months after posting this the pain is not gone. Not even close. It’s even worse because I feel like he never even really loved me in the first place. He just loved what he tought I could do for him… i.e. have a woman totally and hopelessly devoted to him.

Please pray for me, that I can put this behind me once and for all. I want to stop loving him… I want to stop hurting. Do you think God could help me with that?

 

[Mark_Robert]

Oh boy, do I know where you’re coming from. Except, the other way around… I was engaged (this all happened very early in the engagement, what I’m about to say) to what I thought was an amazing, devout Christian man who morphed into something else entirely when the ring slid on my finger. All of a sudden, the thoughtful and prayerful man I knew was something entirely different- a child who quit his job and refused to work, hit me when it pleased him, expected engagement to equal sex (how!? why!? I still struggle with that one) and began to try to control my life. As the weeks passed on, phone calls were expected when I got to work, during my breaks at work, when I left work. The breaking straw was when I got the stomache flu and was literally incapacitated to attend services one Sunday- my former fiance flew off of his handle and accused me of many things, yelled and screamed at my sister, and then left a threatening voicemail that he was outside my house.
I called him to tell him that his behavior was unacceptable, and he verbally berated me and said “maybe his mother was right, you (meaning me) are just a (we’ll substitute harlot)”
In my flu ridden state, I called it off at that moment. What a gift from God that was, the strength to do that, because his behavior worsened and worsened to the point where I had to get a restraining order for him.

What I’m trying to get at, in such a long and roundabout way, is that I still love my former fiance with all my heart. If he was the man I knew him to be before he “changed” I would likely be married and hoping for a child by now. What would I have done with a husband like that? What would my life have been? It pains me to no end to know that I was the one who ended the relationship- I understand your feelings.
But I’ve slowly come to learn that this was God’s way of making me wait for something better. It hasn’t come yet, but it will. I have hope- and I will pray for you to have the same.

Wow, he sure did a 180 on you didn’t he? What a jerk.

 

[jeanannemarie]

Thank you all for sharing your stories with me. May God bless you.

9 months after posting this the pain is not gone. Not even close. It’s even worse because I feel like he never even really loved me in the first place. He just loved what he tought I could do for him… i.e. have a woman totally and hopelessly devoted to him.

Please pray for me, that I can put this behind me once and for all. I want to stop loving him… I want to stop hurting. Do you think God could help me with that?

My situation happened 37 years ago. It doesn’t hurt the same way, but I have not forgotten him. The thing that helps me is to always remember to pray for him. I pray for his salvation (he wasn’t a good Catholic when we were together and neither was I) and ask God to bless him. Then I think that perhaps I will see him in Heaven and it will all come full circle. I know that it won’t be a wrong sort of love then and all the hurt will be gone. So, yes I am sure God can help you with this. I have pondered alot on just why people get so stuck on having one particular person. My daughter just about went off the deep end in 07 over a guy. The guy went back to his old girlfriend and she in turn ditched him. I saw him a few weeks ago and he is miserable. No one is happy. Everyone chasing someone else. There must be many hidden factors at work. Incidently, both these people are more interested in everything except God at this time. My thought is that people should go to God and get straight with Him on all levels before they can hope to succeed in romantic love. Until then, what is there to offer?

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

Have you ever tried a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary or the most Holy Rosary? The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a devotion to the unrequited love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, from my limited understanding. It explains the mystery of the crucifixion, not only in terms of the pain of the nails and the wounds but in terms of the rejection that Jesus suffered from the world and from his disciples. It explains his love in terms of his passion, ardour, desire, excessiveness, how he suffered in dying at 33 years because he wanted to stay with us longer, how he is happy with being shut up in a host just to be with us in Eucharist around the world despite the fact that we leave him alone all the time and desecrate him so often. en.wikisource.org/wiki/Devotion_to_the_Sacred_Heart_of_Jesus#FIRST_POINT._.E2.80.94_The_ardent_desire_Jesus_Christ_feels_to_be_with_us.

I devote myself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary because it is a sure and perfect way, but I never understood the love of Jesus until I read selections of this book. I could identify with the Immaculate Heart of Mary’s love as a mother’s love since my mother loves me so much but could not understand the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This book helped me understand things such as: *“A love must be very violent if it cannot be satisfied in Heaven, where all desires are fulfilled.” *

I know a girl who once suffered from a horrible case of unrequited love, although she wonders if it was ever really love at all, she only got over it through 1) daily Mass 2) frequent confession 3) daily Rosary (ranging from 5 to 15 decades) 4) the love of her family

May we in this thread be glories to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary!!! May the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary bring healing to those who grace this thread and ardent passionate love for his Sacred Heart!! Jesus, I trust in you!! Jesus, I trust in you!! May the Holy Spirit through the Immaculate Heart of Mary grace us with abundant gifts of the Holy Spirit, all that we need!! Jesus, I trust in you!! Jeus, I trust in you!!

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Devoting oneself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary:
True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin montfort.org.uk/Writings/TrueDev.html
Secret of the Rosary montfort.org.uk/Writings/Rosary.html
**Preparation for 33 day consecration to the Blessed Virgin **saintlouisdemontfort.com/consecration.cfm
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesusen.wikisource.org/wiki/Devotion_to_the_Sacred_Heart_of_Jesus#FIRST_POINT._.E2.80.94_The_ardent_desire_Jesus_Christ_feels_to_be_with_us.