We are all here to learn to love and be loved.
The biggest mistake people make about love in relationships is confusing it for attachment.
The more you are reliant on others as your only source of love, the greater disconnect there will be between what you believe love to be and your experience of what love is.
Whenever you have someone in your life that you can never let go of because it makes you uncomfortable, you are connected at the level of attachment. Attachment in relationships is a level of love that requires another to provide love for you because you are not loving yourself. There is nothing wrong with this for a time, as for some as it might be needed. The problem is that as life changes and we grow and change with it. When you grow and change your definition of love needs to evolve as well. If your capacity for self love has evolved but you continue to operate in a relationship from an outdated idea of what love is, it can create a huge stress in that relationship. You get in this scenario where you don’t enjoy being around the person, but you still want them to be in your life. There is an unconscious definition of love that is guiding these situations. The belief is that the other is responsible for your happiness or you are responsible for theirs. Continuing to operate from this belief when it is no longer applicable means that over time you will have to continue to give larger pieces of yourself away in order to make things work. This creates a dynamic in the relationship where you are unhappy but at the same time feel powerless to be able to do anything about it.
Totally relying on your partner as your source of happiness is a form of energy vampirism. You are not loving your partner. You are taking his or her energy. When your partner has no energy to give you will be pushed away. You will see it as rejection. Your partner will see it as protection.
Within our hearts is a connection to an infinite source of love. We block it by having ideas that are out of alignment with love but believing that they are the truth. As a practice you can identify these beliefs by paying attention to what arises when who you depend on for love is removed from you. The practice here is to deliberately distance yourself from who you depend on for love for short periods of time. Just simply be by yourself in stillness and notice what arises. This is your opportunity to expand your definition of love. Filter your self criticism, judgements, and beliefs that are out of alignment with love and upgrade them with ones that are. Take the opportunity to connect with that source of love within and fill yourself up so you are overflowing with it. This will take time of course.
The idea is to be in a place where you are so happy and in love with you. When you are in this state of being you bring a much higher vibe to your relationships. Instead of taking energy from another by depending upon them for your happiness you give love freely. This totally changes the dynamic of the relationship.
It creates a space for the other person to respond to you in a totally different way. If they can meet you on that level, then the relationship is given a chance to evolve and operate from a new place. You are now moving from conditional love towards unconditional love. There are less expectations on what the other person has to do to meet your needs. When both partners are so full of love for themselves (not in an egotistical way), love is never demanded or asked for. It is given without restrictions.
Remember – You are the source of love that you are looking for.