Love should feel like coming home. Not a guessing game, not an emotional famine, and certainly not a heavy weight in your chest that you swallow over and over to stay in their good graces.
But unfortunately, many of us stay in relationships where we are not valued, making excuses in our heads like “It’s just a phase” or “All relationships are hard.”
When you catch yourself justifying neglect, disrespect, and an obvious lack of balance in your relationship, it’s time to stop and take a closer look. You might not be getting what you truly deserve.
Below are 9 signs that you might not be getting the love you deserve and what they really mean.
9 Signs You Are Not Getting What You Deserve In A Relationship
1. You’re always the one putting in the effort
Healthy love is a two-way street. It takes two people to show up—emotionally, mentally, and sometimes even physically. If you are the only one who initiates calls, plans dates, or solves every problem, that is a major red flag.
Relationships are partnerships, not projects. When the effort is only going in one direction, it slowly drains your energy and self-worth. You start to feel like you are auditioning for love instead of actually experiencing it.
You deserve someone who is meeting you halfway—someone who will text you first sometimes, who checks in because they genuinely want to, not because you reminded them.
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2. Your needs are constantly minimized or ignored
It is completely normal to have different emotional needs. What is not normal is when your partner treats yours as a burden, inconvenience, or act of charity.
If you express that something is hurting you and they respond with “You’re overreacting,” “That’s just how I am,” or “You’re too sensitive,” they are not listening—they are deflecting. This is called emotional invalidation.
A partner who truly values you will try to understand your emotions and perspective, even if they do not agree with you right away. You deserve to be heard, not dismissed. Love without empathy is cold, no matter how fiery it once was.
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3. You feel more lonely with them than without them
Loneliness in a relationship is one of the most heartbreaking feelings to experience. You can be sharing a bed, a dinner table, even social media posts with them, and feel like you are emotionally a world away.
When communication dries up, affection disappears, or emotional support goes missing, loneliness slowly makes its way in. You stop sharing what you did that day because you know they are not really listening. You stop expecting comfort because disappointment has become the new normal.
If being alone feels like more peace than being with them, that is your heart telling you something loud and clear: your emotional needs are not being met.
Related: Why Do We Experience a Longing Feeling in a Relationship?
4. You’re afraid to speak your truth
A loving relationship should be a safe space to be honest. But if you are constantly censoring yourself, afraid they will get angry, pull away, or start twisting your words to make you look bad, that is emotional manipulation disguised as love.
You might find yourself walking on eggshells, hemming and hawing over every sentence you say before you say it. Over time, you will lose your voice, and once your voice is gone, so is your sense of self.
Love should give you space to be your full self—unfiltered, imperfect, but real. If you are too afraid to speak your mind without fear of reprisal, you are not in a relationship, you are in a performance.
5. You’re the one doing all the emotional labor
Every relationship will face its challenges. The real test is how those challenges are navigated. If you find that you are constantly smoothing over conflict, comforting them when they are upset, apologizing to end arguments, or managing both your emotional worlds, you are doing too much.
Emotional labor is the invisible work that goes into keeping the relationship shipshape: moods, keeping track of anniversaries, family dynamics, logistics—everything. When it is one-sided, it is exhausting.
A mature partner will not leave you to do all the emotional heavy lifting in the relationship. They will notice when you are worn down too and step in to help. That is how you maintain a balance.
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6. You keep making excuses for their behavior
“He’s just stressed.”
“She didn’t mean it like that.”
“It’s not usually this bad.”
If you find yourself saying these or similar lines over and over, press pause. You might be sacrificing your truth to protect them.
Excuses are what we tell ourselves when we don’t want to see the truth—the gap between who someone is and who we want them to be. But the more time you spend in denial, the deeper you will sink into dissatisfaction.
Relationships require growth. And growth requires accountability. If your partner is constantly hurting you and not taking responsibility, this is not a growing pain—it is a growing pattern.
7. You’ve started doubting your worth
One of the most insidious signs is when you start to believe that you are the problem. You begin to think you are too needy, too emotional, too something when really all you want is reciprocity.
If your partner constantly criticizes you, compares you, or otherwise makes you feel like you are not enough, they are chipping away at your confidence. That is not love; that is emotional erosion.
You should never have to diminish yourself to accommodate someone else’s comfort. The right person will never make you beg for the basics—attention, respect, loyalty, affection.
8. The relationship feels transactional, not emotional
When a relationship becomes a tally of favors, obligations, or bargains—“I did this for you, so you should do that for me”—that’s when love starts feeling like currency.
Your partner only shows affection when they want something? They use money, gifts, or guilt as leverage? They emotionally blackmail you with threats of leaving? If so, you are being managed, not loved.
Real intimacy can never be bargained for or negotiated. It grows in the quiet acts of service that expect nothing in return—the “thinking of you” text, the way they notice you when you are not okay, the effort they put in without having to be asked.
9. Deep down you know you’re not happy—but you stay anyway
The hardest sign of all to admit is sometimes the clearest one: you already know it. You feel it in your gut when they leave after an argument that gets no resolution, the way you have to pretend in front of friends. You feel it in the smallest ways every day when you think to yourself, “Maybe this is just the way love is.”
But love is not supposed to feel like constant pain, friction, or something you have to defend your right to. Staying out of fear of being alone, starting over, or having to start again is not loyalty—it is self-abandonment.
Your heart knows when it is tired of being served crumbs and begging for the basics. Listen to it.
Why We Settle for Less
You might be reading this list and thinking, “Why would someone stay in a relationship where they are not valued?” The truth is that many people do not see it in the beginning.
Maybe you were conditioned as a child that love means endurance, and the more you suffer, the “more real” the love is. Or maybe you were gaslighted into believing your needs and wants are too much. Or maybe you have been conditioned to accept emotional starvation as normal.
Then there is fear—fear of being alone, fear of starting over, fear of being undesirable, fear that no one else will love you. These fears are all very real and strong, but they can also keep you in situations that are no longer nourishing, sometimes even when they stopped feeding your soul a long time ago.
But love built on fear is not love. It is survival. You deserve more than survival.
What Love Should Actually Feel Like
We sometimes need reminding of what healthy love should feel like. It does not have to be fireworks every day or constant excitement, but it should be peace.
The ability to have a conversation on any topic without feeling like you are walking on eggshells.
The confidence that when conflict arises, both of you genuinely care more about resolution than being right.
Consistency. You do not need a person who is perfect, but you deserve a person who is predictable.
The knowledge that you are seen, known, and still chosen.
Healthy love should leave you feeling uplifted and nourished. It should help you grow without tearing you down. It should feel like teamwork, not tension.
How to Move Towards What You Deserve
If you find that you see parts of yourself in the descriptions above, take a moment to pause. Awareness is the first step toward change, and you do not have to leave or do anything you are not ready for overnight.
Start by reconnecting to yourself. What do you need to feel loved, valued, and respected? Communicate these things as clearly as you can. If your partner listens and acts on it, that is a positive sign. If they continue to dismiss you or not take you seriously, that is your answer.
Walking away from a relationship does not mean you failed; it means you refused to accept less than you deserve.
Healing after an unbalanced relationship will take time. You might experience fear, guilt, anxiety, or even feelings of abandonment in the healing process. But on the other side of this pain lies clarity and the peace of knowing that no relationship is worth costing you.
Final Thought
Love is not something you have to earn through suffering. Love is something that grows naturally when two people choose one another, respect each other, and care for each other’s hearts.
If you are constantly in a relationship that leaves you feeling unseen, unheard, or unappreciated, it’s time to pause and remember this simple truth: you were never created to chase love. You were created to experience it.
You deserve the kind of love that feels like home, not a battlefield.
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