Dear pipsqueaks,
Let's face it: no relationship begins with equal love. What is equal love, you ask? It's when both feel the importance of each other just the same. There will always be one who cares more, gives patience more, and sacrifices more - without expecting more or if any. Now, it's not an impossible state to reach. It just takes all the right ingredients - time, place, event, and person. But, if it were only that easy...
So where is everyone else if they weren't at that state? Well, anywhere on the scale except the middle. For those on the shorter end of the stick, it's so much more difficult to find balance - which is probably why you try harder. You would move mountains and swim seas just to make sure they are happy. You suddenly become the bravest and most determined self you've ever been. You become invincible because that is what is called for if you want to keep them. Then, why so willing to go through all this? Because the love you have for them outweighs the love in return. Because you love that much more. As for why that is, it's another jar of who-knows-what.
Luckily, that state doesn't last for long. Or, it lasts only as long as you feel your heart can handle. Then slowly, you will withdraw. It's nothing to be ashamed of - it's only human. We all say that we should give without expecting anything in return, but that is so unnatural. We are humans. Expecting a response is to know it has been received. How it has been received is a whole other story, but simply to know it has been. A double-check on your instant messages, you can say. Even a smile is a return, no?
So yes, you start to feel that your love is not being responded. Fair enough, at least you tried. Funny how things work out because it is usually around this change of state that if the other notices, they start to respond. Big time. They become the more caring, the more patient. More likely than not, this is also when they say, "It's too late."
It's too late to finally start appreciating how delicious my TLC lunch packs are. It's too late to finally learn the challenges of your tempers. It's too late to finally start understanding how difficult it is to deal with all your nonsenses. It's too late to finally realize you had it all too good. Sorry, it's too late.
Look again, the table has turned. The one who once "loved more" no longer does. It feels almost as if you had released yourself from voluntary confinement. Free, at last. No more will you feel under-appreciated, under-cared, and under-loved. At that exact moment, you have declared yourself worthy of someone better. And You are. Mind you, this isn't "giving up." It's realizing the reality that it is what it is. It shouldn't have to come to the point where you must force love out of them to get love out of them. But it did. Then, we would have to question whether at all it was love to begin with. It probably was too one-sided anyway, but of course being so head over heels, you wouldn't have noticed.
You do now. So make yourself available to someone who deserves you, or at least to someone who will realize it before it's too late. To those who loved more, you deserved to love and be loved equally. Demand it.
(Life is your cup of coffee. You decide how much milk you want, how much caffeine you need, and how much sugar you deserve.)