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
1. “It takes both sided to build a bridge.” – Fredrik Nael
2. “Problems can be fixed. But unrequited love is a tragedy.” – Suzanne Harper
3. “Unrequited love is the infinite curse of a lonely heart.” – Christina Westover
4. “With a love that’s so one sided there’s no chance at all. The walls have got to fall.” – Sonny & Cher
5. “The most painful goodbyes are the ones that are left unsaid and never explained.” – Jonathan Harnisch
6. “You like someone who can’t like you back because unrequited love can survive in a way that once-requited love cannot.” – John Green
7. “Watering artificial flowers will never make them grow. Stop pouring your energy into one-sided relationships.” – John Mark Green
8. “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
9. “One sided relationship is no relationship at all. The relationship blossoms when there is trust love and affection between all concerned.” – Sandeep Ravidutt Sharma
10. “Nobody’s home but me I’m the only one hangin’ on one-sided love.” – Brooke Hogan
11. “You can sacrifice and not love. But you cannot love and not sacrifice.” – Kris Vallotton
12. “The pain of one sided love, of knowing that I had loved her more than she had loved me.” – Sierra Simone
13. “When you care for people more than they deserve, you get hurt more than you deserve.” – Stephen Kyeyune
14. “Waiting for you is like waiting for rain in the drought which was useless and disappointing.” – Himanshu Chate
15. “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
16. “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
17. “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
18. “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
19. “Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” – James Baldwin
20. “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
22. “To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” – Federico García Lorca
23. “Our time is up. Trying to make this work, it ain’t enough one-sided love.” – Blackbear
24. “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
25. “One of the greatest pain and agony is being in one sided love with someone.” – Anurag Prakash
26. “The hardest thing to do is watch the one you love, love someone else.” – Poise
27. “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
28. “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
29. “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
30. “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
32. “My silence is just another word for my pain. A love like I have for you, I’ll never, ever know again.” – Vicki Case
33. “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
34. “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
35. “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
36. “Unrequited love is all right in books and things, but in real life, it completely sucks.” – Meg Cabot
37. “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
38. “Let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow.” – J.M. Barrie
39. “She hated that she was still so desperate for a glimpse of him, but it had been this way for years.” – Julia Quinn
40. “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
41. “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
42. “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
43. “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
44. “There is nothing so mortifying as to fall in love with someone who does not share one’s sentiments.” – Georgette Heyer
45. “Nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn’t meant to be.” – Gregory David Roberts
46. “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
47. “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
48. “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
49. “Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference. Perhaps this is why we always love madly someone who treats us with indifference.” – Cesare Pavese
50. “The biggest curse in life is not loosing your love, but not being loved by someone you love.” – Kiran Joshi
51. “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
52. “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
53. “Winter is much like unrequited love; cold and merciless.” – Kellie Elmore
54. “I have poured my heart out …. And now I am empty.” – Ranata Suzuki
55. “It was hard to pour endless love into someone who wouldn’t love you back. No one could do it forever” – Zoje Stage
56. “I kept our memories in me while I watched you lose your grasp of ours.” – Verliza Gajeles
57. “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
59. “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.
