When they need a lift, you ask what time. When they mess up and need an understanding shoulder to cry on, you clear your schedule and show up with tissues and their favorite beverage. But when life chucks turds in your direction…crickets. If this sounds familiar, unfortunately, you’re in a one-sided relationship — and deserve better. To help you work through the resentment and frustration, we’ve put together this list of quotes on one-sided relationships.
59 One-Sided Relationship Quotes You’ll Relate To
Down in the dumps over a one-sided relationship? Hopefully, these quotes on the topic will cheer you up – or at least help you know you’re not alone.
Sad But True One-Sided Relationship Quotes
- “It takes both sided to build a bridge.” – Fredrik Nael
- “Problems can be fixed. But unrequited love is a tragedy.” – Suzanne Harper
- “Unrequited love is the infinite curse of a lonely heart.” – Christina Westover
- “The most painful goodbyes are the ones that are left unsaid and never explained.” – Jonathan Harnisch
- “You like someone who can’t like you back because unrequited love can survive in a way that once-requited love cannot.” – John Green
- “Watering artificial flowers will never make them grow. Stop pouring your energy into one-sided relationships.” – John Mark Green
- “Because, if you could love someone, and keep loving them, without being loved back then that love had to be real. It hurt too much to be anything else.” – Sarah Cross
Expectation One-Sided Relationship Quotes
- “One sided relationship is no relationship at all. The relationship blossoms when there is trust love and affection between all concerned.” – Sandeep Ravidutt Sharma
- “Nobody’s home but me I’m the only one hangin’ on one-sided love.” – Brooke Hogan
- “You can sacrifice and not love. But you cannot love and not sacrifice.” – Kris Vallotton
- “The pain of one sided love, of knowing that I had loved her more than she had loved me.” – Sierra Simone
- “Waiting for you is like waiting for rain in the drought which was useless and disappointing.” – Himanshu Chate
- “If you know you can’t take it, then baby, why try to give it? Cause I ain’t for no one-sided love affair.” – Elvis Presley
- “Every time she laughs, she hopes he’s watching, hoping that he’ll fall for her smile just as hard as she fell for his.” – k.m.
Heartbroken One-Sided Effort Relationship Quotes
- “It’s kind of funny how someone person can break your heart, and you can still love them with all the little pieces.” – Kuhhrizma Clemons
- “One sided love is never gonna work. So let me tell you something that I’m sure you’ve never heard of tender love and care in case you’re unaware.” – Mandy Moore
- “Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” – James Baldwin
- “I’ve been in love with you since the very beginning. You asked why there isn’t anyone else in my life, and the reason … is you.” – Julie James
- “A wounded deer leaps highest.” – Emily Dickinson
- “To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” – Federico García Lorca
- “I have to admit, an unrequited love is so much better than a real one. I mean, it’s perfect. As long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.” – Sarah Dessen
- “One of the greatest pain and agony is being in one sided love with someone.” – Anurag Prakash
- “The hardest thing to do is watch the one you love, love someone else.” – Poise
- “I’m not sure what scare me more, that you will never start loving me, or that I will never stop loving you. Too sad to miss you, too bad to lose you, too hard to forget you!” – Amogh Tiwari
- “Loved her enough to pretend otherwise. Loving someone who doesn’t love you in return, is like trying to fly with a broken wing.” – Amogh Tiwari 33 Romantic Love Notes and Texts for Her 119 Uplifting Affirmations For Women To Use Daily Want To Learn The Art Of Being Witty? 19 Tips To Improve Your Wit
One-Sided Love Quotes
- “Some say that one sided love is better than none, but like half a loaf of bread, it is likely to grow hard and moldy sooner.” – Eric Berne
- “Maybe I was destined to forever fall in love with people I couldn’t have. Maybe there’s a whole assortment of impossible people waiting for me to find them. Waiting to make me feel the same impossibility over and over again.” – Carol Rifka Brunt 31.“Love isn’t always perfect. It isn’t a fairy tale or storybook. And it doesn’t always come easy.” – Linda Lapointe
- “Isn’t that how falling in love so often works? Some stranger appears out of nowhere and becomes a fixed star in your universe.” – Kate Bolick
- “She’d been in love with the man, and love is a scary thing. If not reciprocated, it can turn a person into a monster.” – Michele Young-Stone
- “You just know something is amiss, when you look at someone and long for something that is not yours or you cannot have. It’s an absence-a loss of a heartbeat.” – Nadège Richards
- “Unrequited love is all right in books and things, but in real life, it completely sucks.” – Meg Cabot
- “Yet my longing for her was like a bad cold that had hung on for years despite my conviction that I was sure to get over it at any moment.” – Donna Tartt
- “Let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow.” – J.M. Barrie
- “She hated that she was still so desperate for a glimpse of him, but it had been this way for years.” – Julia Quinn
- “Sometimes no matter how many eyelashes or dandelion seeds you blow, no matter how much of your heart you tear out and slap on your sleeve, it just ain’t gonna happen.” – Melissa Jensen
- “We’re cool,” I say calmly, although I feel something else. I feel… sad. Like I’ve lost something I never quite had.” – Christine Seifert
- “His hands are saying that he wants to hold her. His feet are saying that he wants to chase after her… He’s probably forgotten that I’m here, beside him” – Ai Yazawa
- “I had discovered that there was something more painful than falling in love with someone who hasn’t fallen for you; hurting that person-hurting him and not being able to do anything about it.” – Elizabeth Chandler
- “There is nothing so mortifying as to fall in love with someone who does not share one’s sentiments.” – Georgette Heyer
- “Nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn’t meant to be.” – Gregory David Roberts
- “Never fall in love with someone that won’t fight for you because when the real battles begin they won’t pull your heart to safety, but they will their own.” – Shannon L. Alder
- “Dignity will only happen when you realize that having someone in your life doesn’t validate your worth.” – Shannon L. Alder
Deep One-Sided Relationship Quotes
- “My heart no longer felt as if it belonged to me. It now felt as it had been stolen, torn from my chest by someone who wanted no part of it.” – Meredith Taylor
- “Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference. Perhaps this is why we always love madly someone who treats us with indifference.” – Cesare Pavese
- “Which is when I decided I would never love anyone again because you just felt like an idiot when you put love out there and it didn’t come back your way.” – Karen Tayleur
- “I realised that one might love him secretly with no hope of encouragement, which can be very enjoyable for the young or inexperienced.” – Barbara Pym
- “Winter is much like unrequited love; cold and merciless.” – Kellie Elmore
- “I have poured my heart out …. And now I am empty.” – Ranata Suzuki
- “It was hard to pour endless love into someone who wouldn’t love you back. No one could do it forever” – Zoje Stage
- “I kept our memories in me while I watched you lose your grasp of ours.” – Verliza Gajeles
- “Living with someone you love can be lonelier than living entirely alone, if the one that you love doesn’t love you.” – Tennessee Williams 58.”The worst feeling is falling for someone and knowing that they won’t be there to catch you.” – Rashida Rowe
- “In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.” – Mignon McLaughlin
How to Use These Quotes on One-Sided Relationships for Healing
You’ve probably heard of art therapy, but what about quote therapy? It’s a way to get your mind off something vexing or, at the very least, turn it into something productive.
Journaling Prompts: Take one or two quotes that resonate with you and journal about them. Think about any unbalanced relationships in your life. You don’t necessarily need to come up with solutions. For now, let yourself just explore the associated emotions.Meditate on Them: Analytical meditation helps many people work through problem relationships. Use one of the quotes during a session to plumb new insights.Share Them: Social media can be a cesspit of backdoor bragging, sales pitches, and social posturing. Instead of joining the fray, share an inspirational quote about letting go of one-sided relationships. (It’s also a way to send a message.)Make Art: Turn your frustration with the situation into a work of art. Use one or more quotes to inspire a sketch, painting, sculpture — or piece of creative writing.
One-sided relationships hurt. After all, it feels defeating and demeaning to be the person who always gives and gets nothing in return. But before throwing in the towel, talk to the person. There’s a better-than-average chance they’ve just been distracted by something challenging and were oblivious to their behavior. If so, they’ll apologize. If they get defensive, it may be time to end the relationship.
