You can’t be the only one who dreams a dream for two.

You can’t be the only one doing all the work, waiting for his calls, taking care of him, putting his needs first like you do.

You can’t be the only one lending all the support, always there for him, giving your heart and soul.

It can't be this one-sided.

It has to come from him, too.

This isn't how it’s meant to be, it’s not how it’s meant to feel. This aloneness; this feeling of being more alone with someone than how you’d feel on your own.

You can’t keep giving like you do, keep sacrificing like you do, keep focusing on him and what he’s thinking and what he needs, while accepting so little in return like you do.

Are you seeing this?

One-sided relationships never, ever work because they simply can’t. You can’t be the only one in a relationship meant for two. There has to be two people, on the same page, who want the same thing – with each other – to make this work. There is no other way.

It goes against everything we know to be true, deep down in our hearts, to believe anything different. We want to look beyond what everyone else can see. We want to excuse away everything we know to be true. He’s stressed, he’s going through a lot right now, he’s been hurt before, he’s had a rough childhood, he’s going through a lot right now.

Yes, and yes and yes. But what about you?

You see, we do these one-sided relationships so well that we don’t even recognize when they’re happening to us – again. They've become our pattern, our MO, our habitual response when we’re in a relationship with someone that we can’t tell them apart from the real thing.

They give us that familiar sense of butterflies in our stomachs which we view as a positive thing instead of the reality that it’s really anxiety from not knowing where we stand. It keeps us on our toes, performing all that much more, trying to show and do and be everything we think we’re supposed to do to bring about the happy ending we so want it to be.

But it’s not our role to make this happen. We can’t do it on our own.

If he’s not meeting you there, if he’s not right there with you participating as much as you are, it’s happening again.

When you put yourself out there, do you get anything back?

After that great conversation that you initiated, does he ever follow up? Does he call you or text you back?

Or is it just more space, more silence, more of a reminder that you’re the only one?

It’s that space that tells you how far apart you really are.

It’s that silence that speaks volumes.

See it. Listen for it. It’s how you know.