Does love depend on what someone deserves?
“After everything I have done for them, I deserved more than this.”
There can be real hurt in that sentence. Perhaps someone ignored you when you needed help, or treated your care as something they never had to consider. You expected to matter to them, and their response suggested otherwise.
But “more” can mean different things. You may be asking for honesty, kindness or effort in a relationship you both agreed to maintain. You may also be wishing someone felt a love they have told you they do not feel. Deserving care does not make those situations the same.
A Spark from The Vision
It's hard to accept less love than what you think you deserve, and it's also hard to love more than is deserved.
In “Feeling hurt”, Innocent notices how the love we expect and the love we feel able to give can both become questions of deserving. Hurt can reveal what we value in ourselves and what we wanted from another person. It also raises the question of how we will treat them while we are hurting.
What were you expecting?
Suppose a close friend repeatedly asks for your time but is unwilling to make any room when you need theirs. Wanting some care in return is a reasonable concern about the friendship. You can name what has been happening and ask whether they are willing to change it. You may decide to give less if the arrangement continues to leave you exhausted and alone.
Now suppose you have been hoping that being especially attentive to someone will make them want a romantic relationship. They are grateful for your kindness but do not want that relationship. The disappointment can hurt deeply. Still, doing more for them cannot create an obligation to feel what you feel.
The first situation asks whether two people are caring for a relationship they share. The second asks for a feeling that one person does not share. Neither becomes clearer by deciding that you must be unlovable, or that the other person must repay everything you gave.
It can be painful to admit that your care carried a hope you never stated. That admission gives you a chance to stop making offers you can no longer give freely. You can take distance because staying close hurts, without using distance as a threat meant to change their answer.
Hurt does not settle how to respond
When someone has treated you badly, withholding care can feel like restoring fairness. There may be good reasons to end the relationship or refuse another request. You do not have to keep making yourself available to insults or repeated harm.
Yet a limit and a punishment can look similar until you ask what you are trying to do. Refusing a conversation in which you are being insulted protects you from that treatment. Revealing a private confidence so that the other person feels humiliated tries to create another injury.
You can remain angry and still refuse that second action. This does not require feeling generous towards someone who hurt you. It leaves you able to respond to your own pain without making their pain the measure of whether you have been heard.
Related lessons
AI-generated from Innocent Mwatsikesimbe's writing.
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