For those who have experienced betrayal and hurt in a relationship, they always ask one question:
Does the one who betrays me still love me?
Yes, does the one who betrays themselves still love themselves? Is the answer to this question difficult?
Actually, it’s not difficult at all. It’s just that you’re unwilling to accept it.
Perhaps they once deeply loved and cherished you, but that was in the past. Now, they have betrayed and hurt you. So, how do you prove that they still love you?
Love cannot be quantified or proven. Love is a feeling. When someone loves you, you feel it. When someone no longer loves you, it’s simple.
So, when you ask yourself “Does he/she still love me,” the answer is already self-evident. If the other person truly loves you, you wouldn’t ask yourself such a foolish question.
It’s not that you don’t know if they love you, it’s that you can’t accept that they don’t.
You always try to find strong evidence to convince yourself that they still love you.
The most direct and effective way at this point is to simply ask them: Do you still love me?
The reply will only be one of two: “I still love you” because they still want to “possess” you and the relationship, or “I don’t love you anymore” and in reality “I haven’t loved you for a long time.” You’ll be shocked, wondering how they could have stopped loving you long ago without you realizing.
Regardless of their answer, it’s based on their own needs, not what they give you. Whether someone loves themselves is an answer they give themselves, not you.
For those who have experienced betrayal in a relationship and are constantly struggling with whether the other person still loves them, they will gradually fall into a cycle of seeking evidence.
Analyzing the results of seeking such evidence, if it’s “love,” you’ll be very hurt because if they love you, why would they betray and hurt you? If it’s “not love,” then when they betrayed and hurt you, you should have reached this conclusion. So, why seek evidence? The process of seeking evidence is self-torture.
Why do many people still not understand such a simple truth? Ultimately, it’s because they can’t face the “not love” from the other person, or they hope that the proof of the other person still loving them can support them and their desire to reconcile, especially those who hope to salvage the relationship.
However, love is love, and not loving is not loving. Betrayal and hurt are clear evidence of not loving. How could you possibly find evidence of them still loving you from their betrayal?
Some may fall into the mindset of “if there’s no love, then why continue the marriage, why salvage anything, just get a divorce!”
If there’s no love, of course, you can get a divorce. Betrayal and hurt in a relationship are sufficient reasons for divorce.
However, have you not noticed that not all marriages that have experienced betrayal and hurt end in divorce? Moreover, many marriages without love and affection still endure, don’t they?
So, it’s necessary to separate love, emotions, and marriage.
Betraying the emotions is a clear sign of not loving. There’s no need to seek any further proof. If you can’t bear to let go, you can choose to salvage the relationship—this kind of reconciliation is equivalent to making the other person cherish you again. But whether this goal can be achieved entirely depends on the other person. At the same time, if the other person turns back, can you accept the fact that they once “didn’t love” you? This is also very important. Many people can’t resolve the knot of betrayal because they are unwilling to let go of the fact that the other person once betrayed and “didn’t love” them. So, I hope you understand: the other person is an indivisible whole, and you have to take both the good and the bad, which is a very simple truth.
If the other person doesn’t turn back, or indeed no longer loves, then it’s time to consider resolving the marriage.
Why can marriages without love and affection still continue? Because marriage is not just about emotions. This, too, is a very simple truth.
So, in this situation, you can choose to divorce or not, but you must not agonize over it.
Choosing divorce but still unwilling to let go, or choosing not to divorce but unable to comprehend, these are typical mistakes in dealing with the betrayal of emotions. Of course, in a loveless marriage, if you want to continue, the essential task to accomplish is letting go of emotions. If you can’t do that, the pain will be endless, and you will never truly be able to move on.