Good Intentions?

Facing the imperfections of human relationships (again)

This article is part of the Claritas spring 2024 issue, Home.

By: katherine becking

“Here, Fish!” I beckon to the larger of my parents’ two tabby cats and pat my lap, hoping he will sit with me while I work. Fish remains seated in the doorway, green feline eyes gazing up at me with cold condescension. I try again. “Come here, Fish!” He gracefully stands up, turns around, and plods away. His tail flicks languidly as he breaks my heart.

Since coming home for winter break, I have been trying to endear myself to the new cats. I’ve played with them, fed them treats, and left blanket nests in my room where they could sleep. They do not care. Fish adores my mom and cuddles with her daily, but in the month I’ve been home, he has only sat on my lap twice. (Perhaps this is unsurprising to you, reader, as cats are commonly accused of being fickle.)

Unrequited love is a ubiquitous experience. We tend to associate this phrase with romantic feelings, but the concept also applies to friends and family who don’t seem to care about us as much as we care about them. Maybe you have a friend who is always too busy to meet up or constantly changes plans at the last minute. Maybe you feel ignored by an older sibling you look up to. Maybe you go the extra mile and buy Christmas presents for your roommates, only for them to leave dirty laundry all over the floor. Unrequited love often hurts the most when it is directed toward those we are closest to—the people in our physical and emotional homes.

Personally, I sometimes provide emotional support to people when they are at their lowest: homesick, lonely, or overwhelmed with academic stress. I listen to them, comfort them, and try to get them involved in a supportive community. Yet once they start recovering and making more friends, it feels like they forget about me. It makes me feel slightly used.

Some people can make peace with unrequited love. They remain unbothered when friends don’t reciprocate their efforts in the relationship. But to me, it can feel like torture, as if I deserve to be loved in return for the sacrifices I have made. There are three common yet unhelpful responses to unrequited love, and I have committed all of them.

The first is anger at others for not caring more: They are bad people because they don’t appreciate me. This response results in bitterness and poisons relationships. Another response is anger at oneself: I am worthless, and that’s why people don’t like me. This contributes to depression and despair. A last response is to give up on the relationship, to stop putting in effort with people who are ungrateful, and to seek friendship elsewhere. This response is very popular because it doesn’t seem as immediately harmful as being angry. And it makes sense—if you are constantly making sacrifices for people who don’t give you anything in return, you will burn out.

Contrary to the instinct of self-preservation that tells us to disengage, the Bible calls us to live sacrificially. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus famously implores His audience to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” [1] His logic is simple: “If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” [2] In other words, it is no great feat of selflessness to love those who love us. We are expected to do more than that. But how are we supposed to love our enemies, or at least our inconsiderate roommates, without feeling completely depleted?

At the very least, the fact that we respond with resentment or self-loathing when our love is unappreciated should prompt us to reevaluate what we mean by love. I feel like I love my friends because I enjoy spending time with them. I think my motives are pure when I complete acts of service for them, but my overreactions to their rejection reveal that there is selfishness underneath. As the prophet Jeremiah notes, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.” [3]

Too often, our goal in loving people is to get something from them, such as attention, admiration, or support. We feel entitled to these things, and this indicates that our relationships have become transactional, even if not in a financial sense. Leaving this sense of entitlement unchecked can end up severely hurting those we claim to love.

In Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis tells the story of a queen, Orual, who is fiercely protective of her younger half-sister, Psyche. When Psyche grows up, she marries a god who Orual believes (incorrectly) is a demonic being. Orual threatens to kill herself if Psyche does not expose the god for who he really is, and even stabs her own arm as a warning. Out of concern for her sister, Psyche obeys and is cursed to wander the earth as punishment for betraying the god. At this point, Orual still believes that her own actions came from a noble concern for Psyche’s wellbeing. 

Near the end of her life, Orual realizes that she was actually motivated by jealousy for Psyche, not love. She wanted to be the sole source of Psyche’s happiness and to receive gratitude in return. As the knowledge of her own cruelty dawns on her, Orual realizes that she has deeply wounded all of her closest friends by seeking to monopolize their attention. She prevented her beloved mentor from returning to his homeland, and she worked the man she loved to an early grave. She was a “swollen spider” in the web of her world, “gorged with men’s stolen lives.” [4] Orual, who in many ways represents all of humanity, is the opposite of a Christ figure. She was prepared to sacrifice her life, not for the good of another, but to feed her own controlling nature. In the end, all she can say to Psyche is “I never wished you well, never had one selfless thought of you. I was a craver.” [5]

Like Orual, we start with good intentions, but soon selfish desire creeps in and we become cravers. Much like the people of Israel in the book of Hosea, “[Our] love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.” [6] Our hearts inevitably turn toward a greedy love that exalts the self. Orual cautions, “A love like that can grow to be nine-tenths hatred and still call itself love.” [7]

When we are tortured by feelings of unrequited love, we are often just being selfish. If I’m honest with myself, I know there are plenty of people who genuinely care about me. I have friends, in fact, who care for me more attentively than I do for them. So why does it bother me so much when two or three people seem indifferent to me? Evidently, the problem is not that people don’t love me enough. The problem is that I view love as a currency to acquire rather than as a gift to give.

In the Christian tradition, loving others glorifies God. We love because God loves, and we bear His image. The friendship that exists between believers points the world to Jesus. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” [8] When God saves us, He provides us with a spiritual home in the Church. This community of believers is so important to God’s purpose in the world that it is known as the very body of Christ. As members of the Church, we are commanded to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Loving others and being loved in return exalts God and is meant to bring us joy.

However, relying on other people’s approval for a sense of fulfillment in life is doomed to fail. When we seek a perfect and infinite love from other people—which they, as fallen and finite beings, are unable to provide—we make them into idols. We treat them as false gods of wood and stone, laying gifts at their feet in vain hopes that they will bless us beyond their ability to bless. The Lord warns us, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man … he is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come.” [9] In contrast, one who trusts in the Lord is “like a tree planted by water” that is “not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” [10] God is the source of infinite love that our hearts naturally seek. He is the home where our souls can find rest and be satisfied. It is only by knowing we have a place in God’s home that we can stop worrying about other people’s feelings toward us and start loving them unconditionally.

As an example of how to live out God’s love, we can always look to the life of Jesus. He died for people who mocked and rejected Him. And rather than resenting the crowds for turning against Him, He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” [11] Jesus shows us that love is to be given and enacted, not grasped and hoarded. Furthermore, we can take comfort in the knowledge that any grief we experience due to unrequited love does serve a purpose—it reveals to us a fraction of the pain Jesus felt when He was betrayed and abandoned by His disciples.

We will never be as selfless as Jesus. When we examine our relationships, we see that envy and greed continue to lurk in the dark corners of our hearts. Experiencing unrequited love can reveal the depth of our own sin, which can be discouraging. But this can also bring us joy, because it shows us the extent of God’s forgiveness. And we are not without hope. We can pray that our love for others would increase as God’s love increases in us. We can ask that we would be able to give with no strings attached, so that we might glorify the Lord in our imitation of Him.

[1] Matthew 5:44 (ESV)

[2] Matthew 5:46 (ESV)

[3] Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV)

[4] Lewis, C.S. Till We Have Faces, 276.

[5] Lewis, 305.

[6] Hosea 6:4 (ESV)

[7] Lewis, 266.

[8] John 13:35 (ESV)

[9] Jeremiah 17:5-6 (ESV)

[10] Jeremiah 17:8 (ESV)

[11] Luke 23:34 (ESV)