Over Time, I Have Learned That Neither Attention Nor Love Is Begging For

One of our most basic needs as human beings is to feel loved and recognized. Without a doubt. This is how we bond with a group and grow as people capable of giving and offering tenderness.

However, this care and tenderness must be sincere.

If someone turns their back on us as soon as we ask them something, if they ignore us and instead of bringing us love, they bring us selfishness and loneliness. It is therefore best to take a distance, to accept reality.

Because who wants attention obsessively when it can no longer be, will only intensify his suffering. 

Living according to an eternal score in which only contempt and emptiness are inscribed plunges us into too sad music that no one deserves.

We must act with dignity. With this inner strength where you have to put aside what you feel to remember what you deserve.

We suggest you think about this.

The attention that does not beg, the attention that is offered with authenticity

The need for attention is not something negative or a reflection of an immature personality. There are some basic things that need to be clarified.

• We all need attention – and self-attention. Any type of bond, whether family or couple, is based on elementary roots: the need to feel recognized, supported and accepted for who we are.
• In childhood, healthy, positive and strong attention helps the child to grow up confidently and securely.
• When we establish a relationship, giving and receiving attention is a reflection of the health of that bond.

We pay attention to someone because they are important to us. Because we want to take care of it. Because we want to offer him the best of ourselves.

Attention is therefore essential in any type of dynamic between or more people, united by a significant bond.

The essential problem arises when someone who is important to us does not offer us this emotional, psychological and behavioral dimension.

The inner child who demands attention must mature

During childhood, some children do not receive the right love, selfless recognition and tenderness accompanied by patience and wisdom for example. They are always asking for attention.

• They will do so, moreover, in the most complex way: through inappropriate behavior. Sometimes with tears, sometimes with sincerity or anger.
• Often times, not receiving affection in childhood causes us to feel a deep inner emptiness as we mature.

A past fraught with emotional deficiencies often leads to a present characterized by low self-esteem.

It forms beings who need others to fill this void when they become adults.

• People who demand attention from their spouse knowing they are no longer loved need to regain their emotional strength.
• Nothing is more destructive than insisting on something that no longer exists and that is harmful, toxic and capable of affecting physical and mental health.

If you are not loved and there is no longer any hope of finding that connection, distance is the best answer. Accept the farewells.

How to act when we are no longer loved?

We know it’s easy to say… “ If we don’t like you, go”. “If we don’t love you, don’t beg for love, don’t beg for attention”. How to do concretely?

• No one can stop loving overnight, or erase memories and a past like someone throwing their computer in the trash, or taking up “unnecessary” space.
• We know, for example, that an emotional disappointment or a traumatic breakdown of a couple has an impact on our brain in the same way as when we burn ourselves. 

The secondary somatosensory cortex and the insular cortex (areas of the brain related to pain) interpret these situations as something traumatic. Hence the difficulty of severing these links.

Steps in coping with a breakup

The first step is to maintain mature and sincere communication with our spouse.

It is necessary to get an explanation about what happened. You should also know that if the relationship has broken down, there is no way to reset it.

A break is a mourning. So we have to realize that at least two months will pass where we will have to encourage the relief of pain, rebuild ourselves from the inside and fully accept what is happening.

Ask for support from your family, your friends. Don’t focus your thoughts on yesterday, build new short and long term plans and goals.

Remind yourself every day of what you are worth as a person. Nothing better than focusing on yourself, than taking care of yourself. For example, practice mindfulness, do things that relax and make you feel good.

Images by Catrin Welz-Stein