Most of us deserve love, and frequently we may feel that we are not getting the love that we think we deserve from the people who are important to us.
When we’re feeling jilted or unloved, it can be tempting to demand other people to love us. However, begging for love is a losing strategy for a handful of reasons.
In this article, we’ll investigate why people beg for love, what it means to beg for love, why begging for love can’t work, and how it might be possible to get someone to love you without begging them.
Why People Beg For Love
When we discuss begging for love, we typically are talking about the situation in which someone thinks that their intimate partner or significant other should be rendering them with a deeper level of affection than they are currently rendering.
In simple terms, begging for love is not the same as asking someone to respect you. It’s demanding them to feel something for you, which they may not feel. It’s also demanding them to make you feel loved.
Begging for love isn’t reasonable because it requests other people to change the way that they feel about you to facilitate certain feelings within yourself. Your feelings aren’t in anyone’s control other than yours.
Likewise, the feelings of other people are not under your control, and it isn’t acceptable to demand them to feel in specific ways because it is more comfortable for you if they do.
If it’s so unreasonable to beg for love, why do people still do it? There are a few reasons why people beg for love. These reasons include:
- Feeling neglected by someone who they think should love them
- Feeling ignored by someone who they believe could learn to love them under the right circumstances
- Not having a strategy for getting someone else to love them
- Lack of self-love or self-respect
- Compensating for having a deficit of feelings of love for someone that they think they should love
Each of these reasons is important to investigate in more detail so that you can understand the phenomenon of begging for love more fully.
How People Beg For Love Due To Feeling Neglected
Feeling neglected in a relationship is a critical factor that causes people to beg for love. When we feel neglected in a relationship, some of us may have the instinct to reach out to our partner for more attention.
If we suspect that neglect is chronic and that our partner may not actually value our contribution to the relationship as much as we would prefer, it can be easy to get frustrated and lost.
With enough neglect, people can start to question the foundations of their relationship, like if their partner appreciates them whatsoever. Unpacking this experience is necessary to understand why people beg for love.
Imagine that you have realized that your partner does not love you to the same extent that you love them. This is often a disturbing realization, but there aren’t so many options available at first glance.
The first option would be to break up. Breaking up would preclude any affection whatsoever, and it can be scary for many people to be alone. Thus, most people who beg for love seem to rule out the prospect of breaking up early on.
The second option is to do nothing differently and hope that the other partner can eventually grow into love, where they had so far been incapable. While aspirational, it is unlikely that most people would believe that their situation would improve without applying any effort.
Thus, the third option is to request the partner to be more forthcoming with their love. If this request is formulated too desperately or too selfishly, it will qualify as begging for love.
Many people unwittingly pick the third option because they do not see how their relationship could fulfill their needs in any of the other paths.
In summary, to address the feelings of being neglected, people are driven to extremes like begging for love.
However, the invisible fourth option, focusing on the fundamentals of the relationship and trying to become someone formidable, maybe the best way forward for people who are feeling neglected.
Unfortunately, this option is not for everyone, so breaking up may be more appropriate.
Why People Think Begging For Love May Result In A Durable Relationship
There are a handful of reasons why someone might think that begging for love is a good strategy for making a long-lasting relationship.
The first reason is that some people do not have the emotional intelligence to understand what it is like to have someone else begging them to feel in a certain way.
For these people, the solution to someone else not loving them is simply to ask them to change. They cannot envision the impossibility of their request, nor can they realize that if someone were to ask them a similar question, they would struggle to fulfill it.
The second reason is connected to the first: some people are highly selfish and do not genuinely care about the emotions of other people or their emotional experiences. Instead, they only care about the way other people make them feel.
For these people, begging for love is probably not a conscious habit so much as a reaction to a perceived feeling of discomfort. When they detect that their partner does not feel the emotion that they want them to feel, they lash out with begging for love.
The third reason is perhaps the ugliest of the three. Sometimes people are in denial about the fact that their relationship may not be able to fulfill their need to feel loved because of incompatibility between the people involved.
In this case, denial is a protective mechanism that prevents the relationship from dissolving but leaves the beggar in an uncomfortable position in which their needs are still not being met.
Thus, while they cannot confront the weak fundamentals upon which their relationship is based, begging for love may be a way to try to reconcile the deeper issues such that the person can still have their needs met.
Overall, it seems likely that begging for love harms the integrity of most relationships, even if the fundamentals are good and the people involved are otherwise compatible with each other.
Begging For Love Is Often Caused By Not Having A Strategy
Some people may beg for love because they don’t have a plan for changing their relationship or themselves to ensure that their needs are met.
For these people, begging for love may be an accident which they come to regret. In a moment of weakness and feeling, especially stung by neglect, it might be that begging for love is a temporary reaction for these people who do not have a strategy.
Typically, however, these people also do not have the emotional intelligence to make a strategy for their relationship’s growth and its future prospects.
This, unfortunately, means that they are highly likely to try begging for love in future relationships if they do not manage to get their needs met within the framework of the relationship that they have.
For people who chronically beg for love without having a strategy for how to get it other than asking, there are also a few other issues at play.
Specifically, not having a strategy for a relationship means that many of the essential details of the relationship will be decided by someone else.
This means that the person without a strategy is unlikely to feel like a right partner deserving of equal respect, laying the groundwork for future difficulties and inequalities.
Lack Of Self Love Can Lead To Begging For The Love Of Others
Frequently, people with low levels of self-love and self-esteem can beg for love from others so that they can feel the validation from outside, which they cannot experience from within.
This problem is endemic in the modern age when people’s self-esteem is perpetually low. When people seek validation and love to compensate for lack of self-love, they are asking someone else to replace the void that they feel within themselves.
Aside from being extremely unreasonable, begging for someone else’s love won’t fill the gap that these people feel as a result of having a low opinion of themselves.
The dead giveaways for people who beg for love as a result of their low levels of self-love are:
- A history of people-pleasing behaviors or words
- Self-deprecating comments
- Low expectations for relationships
- Heavy reliance on survival behaviors like conformism
- Fear of confrontation of any type
Because these people cannot place value on themselves to the extent that every person should be able to, they are inclined to request that someone else fills the gap, even if it might be better for that person to provide them with the care they need on their own initiative.
There isn’t necessarily too much to be done to raise the self-esteem of one person in a relationship, as self-confidence is a core personality factor that is mostly unchangeable in the face of intentional effort in most circumstances.
However, self-esteem does appear to improve a marginal amount over the course of decades as people age. Thus, for people who beg for love as a result of their lack of self-love, the passage of time may help to curb the behavior.
Unfortunately, for the partner who is receiving the demands for love, it may be challenging to move forward with the relationship. Begging for love is extremely unattractive, yet many partners of people with low self-esteem probably realize how compromised their partner’s self-concept is.
Worse yet, many partners of people with low self-esteem may be afraid to turn down their request for love because it might confirm the partner’s low self-opinion in their mind.
Begging For Love Can Sometimes Be Caused By Compensating For A Lack Of Love Toward The Person Being Propositioned
While hopefully, it doesn’t occur very frequently, sometimes people beg for love because they understand that they do not feel the love that they think they should feel toward the person that they are begging.
By externalizing the opposite of the behavior that they cannot perform themselves, these people are covering up for their emotions in a very underhanded way.
While they may want to love someone else, they know that they cannot force their emotions to work in the way that they want. Begging the other person for love is thus a compensatory behavior that seeks to fill the guilt that the beggar feels.
However, the rationale behind the act of begging is even less likely to work in this situation than in other situations. Some people may think that they will be willing to give love as soon as they receive it, but this is equally unlikely.
It can be very difficult to identify people who are begging for love to cover up their own lack of love toward the person being begged. There are a few signs to look for in the beggar, however, including:
- Infidelity
- Hedging of bets with other potential partners
- Lack of engagement in the relationship
- A history of accusing others of the actions they are guilty of
- Low emotional intelligence
- Having higher self-esteem than the person being begged
- Selfishness
It is highly unlikely that people who beg for love to compensate for their lack of love will be able to make a successful relationship out of their begging.
Nonetheless, if they can learn to be less selfish, and somehow both people can kindle love together, they may be able to have their relationship survive.
Why Begging For Love Can’t Possibly Work
After reading the above reasons that people beg for love, you probably realize that asking for love is a bad idea that rarely succeeds and is almost never done by people who have a good understanding of their emotions and the emotions of their partners.
Nonetheless, there are a plethora of reasons why begging for love can’t possibly work to get the love that people crave.
Begging for love runs afoul of the following human tendencies:
- Disliking desperation
- Disliking dependence
- Disliking begging
- Disliking demands to think or feel a certain way
- Liking self-sufficiency
In this section, we’ll discuss each of these tendencies in more detail so that you will comprehensively understand why begging for love is never a winning strategy within a relationship.
People Dislike Desperation In Relationships
Being desperate is a major turnoff, and begging for love is one of the most unambiguously desperate behaviors which someone in a relationship can exhibit.
When someone is desperate, they’re exuding signals which state that they are afraid they won’t be able to find someone else if their current relationship doesn’t work.
In other words, they’re unconsciously communicating that they don’t think they deserve what they have because it may have been a fluke. Desperate people may sometimes make the person being propositioned feel like they are being dragged down or held back.
Desperation also ruins any sense of equality that a relationship may have. When one person is desperate for the attention of the other, the other person realizes that they are being put on a pedestal.
If the desperate person persists, the person being begged may start to act like they are above the other person and start to treat them poorly. While this experience is unpleasant for the desperate party, they are likely to tolerate it if they think they can’t do any better.
Begging for love is the apex of desperation. It’s also a surefire way to devalue yourself in the eyes of your partner.
Dependent People Are Less Desirable In Relationships
Begging for love is also a sign that the beggar is dependent on the approval of the other partner for their happiness. Dependence is a surefire way to damage or destroy a relationship because it cultivates a parent-child dynamic.
There’s nothing less attractive than having your significant other beg you to take care of their emotional needs.
While it’s understandable if your partner needs your emotional support in times of crisis, frequently drawing on your partner’s reservoir or emotional energy will quickly leave it depleted, especially if they have problems of their own to deal with in the meantime.
When you beg for love, you communicate to your partner that you are dependent on them, and that may cause them to distance themselves from you in response. After all, they are only responsible for their own emotional well-being.
It’s hard enough to manage the emotions of one person, nevermind the emotions of someone else. Thus, when people beg for love, it ensures that their dependence on the other person is in the full light of day, and it’s never attractive.
The opposite of dependence within a relationship is self-sufficiency. Emotionally self-sufficient people are typically more emotionally mature and also more desirable within the context of a relationship, so choose your behaviors accordingly.
Nobody Likes Demanding Beggars, And It’s Exhausting For Someone To Demand You Feel A Certain Way
Aside from the fact that people tend to dislike dependence as a trait in other people, people also dislike being propositioned regarding their emotions. It’s difficult to feel like someone is demanding something of you, especially when it isn’t something you can always control.
Thus, when someone begs for love, they’re taking a mental toll on the other person. The other person is forced to combat their sense of exhaustion from the demand that has been placed on them while also evaluating their emotions to see if they are at fault for withholding love.
The prospect of someone demanding love is also a specter that can haunt relationships long after the initial begging.
The partner of the beggar will need to evaluate their actions and their words to make sure that they are providing what the beggar feels is the appropriate level of love. Aside from distracting from genuine attempts to love the other person, this self-monitoring habit guarantees anxiety.
Anxiety regarding a partner’s emotional state, much like dependence, makes fostering genuine love significantly more difficult. Furthermore, if anxiety regarding a partner’s emotional state is taken to an extreme as a result of the partner’s intransigence, it may become an abusive cycle.
That’s right: the person who feels neglected and begs for love from their partner can actually become abusive if their behavior has a profound negative effect, which becomes a feedback loop.
Thus, begging for love cannot possibly work because it places a large burden on the person who is the recipient of the begging.
In some circumstances, begging for love can be an abusive behavior, but in most circumstances, it isn’t an effective one for the purpose of accomplishing anyone’s goals in the relationship.
Relationships Thrive When Both Parties Are Self Sufficient
Much like how people dislike dependence, relationship anxiety, and demands by beggars, people value and appreciate others who are self-sufficient and who can manage their emotions without outside assistance.
Self-reliance is an attractive personality trait because people who are self-reliant are unlikely to place unreasonable emotional demands on others.
At the same time, those who are self-reliant are also the most likely to be able to provide high-quality emotional support to other people when they need it the most, because they will not be distracted or burdened with their own emotional difficulties which they cannot manage.
Thus, self-reliance is a magical ingredient in relationships, which makes them significantly stronger.
When both people in the relationship are capable of respecting themselves and only asking for emotional support — not begging for love — when they need it, they can foster a deeper connection based on mutual respect and assistance where it is needed.
In many ways, relationships between self-sufficient people are the opposite of a relationship in which one person begs for love from another person.
Rather than experiencing a strongly unequal dynamic stemming from one person begging another person for an emotional response, which they may not be able to give, self-reliant people in relationships understand that they do not control their partner’s emotions.
Thus, even if one partner does not feel love for the other and the other wishes that they would, they probably have the emotional intelligence to understand that begging will result in the opposite outcome as what they desire.
Subsequently, both parties can either sensitively address the issue of a lack of love head-on, like adults. Alternatively, the person who thinks they want more love from the other person can think about how they could change their own behavior to accomplish the goal they seek.
It’s important to specify that relationships between self-reliant people are not necessarily more likely to succeed than relationships in which one of the two people routinely begs the other person for the love that they feel is unrequited.
When people are self-reliant, they’re often more willing to break up if they think their relationship cannot possibly be changed to fulfill their needs.
Because they do not fear loneliness and they do not necessarily need someone else’s emotional support in the context of a relationship to make them feel happy, the cost of breaking up is much lower than someone who begs for love and who fosters dependence.
However, on average, you will probably find that being self-sufficient leads to better relationship outcomes for you than you would experience if you begged for love. The thing to remember about being self-reliant is that it serves you, not someone else, and not a larger entity.
If you can become self-reliant, you won’t feel the need to stick around in a situation that isn’t working for you. Instead, you will have the choice of whether to invest more of your time in your current relationship or whether to move on.
Having the choice is often enough to make people decide to work on what they have. When self-reliant people do decide to heal their relationship or to make it stronger, they typically experience higher rates of success than people who choose to beg for love or exhibit desperation.
How to Build Love Without Begging
Now that you know all about why you shouldn’t beg for love and how it might ruin your relationship without fulfilling any of your needs, you’re ready to build love without begging.
You can’t control if your partner loves you or not. However, you can control how you feel about yourself and the things you do to make other people think you are worthwhile.
In short, you should be working on yourself to become a more formidable person and a more sensitive lover if you want your partner to give you love.
If they don’t love you after you have shown them the best sides of yourself, you may need to start thinking about breaking up and moving on to another relationship with someone who will appreciate you more.