In 2019 I bought and read Lisa Phillips’ book Unrequited: a challenging but sympathetic untangling of the pain of unrequited love and of the life-changing and sometimes catastrophic effects it can have on the human person. Unrequited love is a state of love experienced by a person when their love-object cannot or will not reciprocate that love in the same way, possibly ever. It can take the form of a silent and distant devotion to a love-object who is unaware of the person’s existence, or a lopsided love affair in which one person is heavily invested while the other feels merely affection or friendship.

This heartbreak usually takes one of two forms: the more public version where a love has been actively rejected, and its shyer sibling which remains silent and hidden. Both of these are near-universal experiences for men and women, old and young, married and single, vowed celibate and cheerful profligate alike. And both can overwhelm to the point of obsessive and self-destructive behaviour:  unrequited lovers stalk, threaten, and self-harm under their influence. In the face of unrequited love, men and women alike also retreat into loneliness and shame, become depressed, and then usually recover naturally over time.

What Phillips did not expect was that around a third of her (female) interviewees would find so many positive reflections about their experience of unrequited love. Phillips found abundant evidence that this painful and complicated experience brought benefits to those who lived through it in sometimes powerful and unexpected ways.

I have been thinking about unrequited love for a long time, partly in light of my own experiences, and partly because other people have been kind (or desperate) enough to share their own pain with me. The agony and complicated shame of unrequited love sets it apart from other expressions of human love. Even the most shattering and selfish adulteries get more positive airtime in human history — poetry, love songs, fiction, drama — than unrequited love, which is often dismissed as childish and ridiculous. Solitary heartbreak, it seems, is for losers.

Most of us exhaust our friends when we are publicly heartbroken but say nothing about our private heartbreaks. This means that many people live through a painful cycle of unrequited love and never tell anyone about it. They will suffer in silence, or write long journal entries, or obsess for hours in solitude. We live in an age when it is potentially more embarrassing for an adult to be exposed as heartbroken than it is to be exposed as watching porn. Porn use is normalised, but genuine and often quite noble love — if not reciprocated — is seen as shameful.

But can there be a spiritual purpose to unrequited love, and a theology of it? The depth of emotion involved, and the real and lasting pain, have led me to wonder if there is some way that this can be used for spiritual good, as well as psychological good. There are patron saints for marriages of all kinds and for the unmarried who want to marry, but there seem to be few for those who struggle with unrequited love. Yet the Scriptures tell us ‘The Lord is close to the broken-hearted’ (Ps 34:18) and that ‘He heals the broken-hearted and binds up all their wounds’ (Ps 147:3). Is God only available if there is a ‘real’ romance involved? Does he withhold this reparative consolation from those who sit alone with a love they can never describe to anyone?

There is a great deal we do not understand about human love, and unrequited love is no exception. There are theories about its origins: that the person is reliving primal Freudian dramas or is trapped in an adolescent stage of affective love. It may be because we evolved to be social and relational, and the loss of a socially approved dyad leads to a loss of identity. People with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders are said to be more prone to falling in unrequited love. Others say that it may stem from attachment problems in infancy or childhood with a parent or parents who consistently failed to mirror affection, creating high anxiety in the child.

All these theories see unrequited love as un-reason-able – irrational, proceeding from a damaged psyche or personality. None of it is flattering, and none of it is normalising, even though it is a remarkably normal experience. But I believe that we can start treating unrequited love as a normal part of human experience, and — as every form of human love teaches us something about God — use it to learn about ourselves, and about the Divine Lover.

First, the hard part: the sheer force of unrequited love, and the devastating impact and weight of suffering it can bring to a person who is trying to live a Christian life, has led to perhaps an undue emphasis on its dangers. The late Fr Benedict Groeschel drew on years of clinical practice as a Catholic priest and psychologist when he wrote The Courage to be Chaste (1985). He identifies infatuation as ‘that phase of relationship, usually short-lived, in which the other person is idealized as in romance or hero worship, or as in a superficial kind of discipleship.’ Groeschel speculates from his own prayerful meditations on the Gospels that perhaps the disciples were initially infatuated with Jesus and had to learn to grow beyond this: ‘Such growth in awareness was a necessary part of their training which would be put to its ultimate test on Good Friday.’¹

This is an interesting reflection, because as we know, the chosen Twelve almost completely failed that test on Good Friday with one exception: the disciple Jesus loved, who had been closest to his heart at the Last Supper, and whose initial infatuation had been purified beyond that of his brother apostles. Strength of emotion is no measure of true love; St Peter is a wonderful example of the voluble profession of love that evaporates when reality intrudes. The atonement at the Sea of Galilee drags out of Peter a painful admission of the limits of his infatuation.

Groeschel is writing for people who are single, those Christians who choose to live chastely through a life of religious celibacy. He goes on:

The single person must not be afraid of complementarity or infatuation, even the beginnings of sexual infatuation. But to maintain a chaste single life one must be very realistic and objective about such infatuating experiences, especially if sexual or romantic elements are hidden below the surface. In such non-sexual relationships as hero worship, the worst danger is that of looking like a fool. In sexual relationships, severe dislocation of two personalities may take place and a lot of harm may be done. The single person owes it to himself or herself to recognize infatuation and to grow beyond it quickly.²

Groeschel makes a fine distinction between the normality of infatuation as a stage and the dangers involved when the frustrated heart continues to play out its hidden tattoo. It is a very fine distinction; I cannot imagine an unrequited love where sexual or romantic elements were not present.

As with all human loves, unrequited love can come with a heavy payload of lust and envy. Envy is an often-overlooked component: the sinful desire to have what is not yours – either the person (who perhaps belongs to another, or to God), or their attributes which you yearn to find in your own heart and do not find. This is a variation on idolatry: you are praying for a gift you can never receive.

Some people may be more prone to a series of unrequited loves: those who are unhappily married, people who are single against their primary choice, and anyone who by profession or temperament lives a lot in their own head, such as priests and religious. Each of these groups of people has their own set of problems with unrequited love. For the married, it can lead to painful ‘emotional affairs’ that can destroy marital trust and intimacy. For those who are single against their primary choice, it can play upon deeply wounded parts of the human psyche where there have been painful and lifelong rejections. Priests and the religious are also vulnerable to unrequited love, especially at times of pressure or stress (which, for the average diocesan priest, means more or less all the time). This unrequited love can be a private crucifixion which exposes the priest or religious — sometimes for the first time — to the full force of the loneliness of the Cross. The pain of the vowed celibate in love is unique, because it feels (and sometimes is) more deeply sinful: the heart feels divided when it should be whole and single-minded.

The heart of a priest in love feels divided because it really is divided — albeit temporarily in most cases — which is always going to cause him pain. Perhaps the key for the vowed celibate is learning that the human heart will always divide; this is what flawed human hearts do, but that this state can and will be temporary. A heart that divides can always be gently re-collected, without sin and without condemnation, and its many pieces returned to the one who can and does make all things new. This re-collection can happen daily, or by the hour, or by the minute; it can happen as often as it needs to. God has plenty of time.

The alternative is more terrible: to have a heart that never risks and never loves anyone or anything; to try to live vowed celibacy as a lifetime of detached consideration of others from a sterile bubble. Walter Schubart has noted that, ‘He who despises eros succumbs to sex.’³ Compartmentalisation can prove fatal to the vowed celibate who ruthlessly suppresses his natural desire for love as well as sex. It produces stunted priests who have a series of covert romances, sometimes both physical and emotional, until the almost inevitable exposure (sometimes when Girlfriend #1 finds out about Girlfriend #2). I wonder also how much this has contributed to the child sexual abuse crisis, where painfully wounded masculinities encountered vulnerable teenage boys, spiraling into seduction, rape, and above all secrecy.

Is there a way we can move through the minefield into pathways that might take us closer to the heart of a loving God? I think so. The first thing to remember about unrequited love is that it is sustained largely on unreality. Our mental and spiritual health are intimately connected to our relationship with reality, and unrequited love can drift into the unreasonable: it is very often the love of an idealised, fictional person with few or no real faults. It is no less joyous for this; perhaps this is its eschatological dimension, where it anticipates the joy of communion in heaven with perfected others.

But because it is shot through with the effects of the Fall, unrequited love is full of pain from two specific sources: grief and shame. The sense of grief and loss is very real, but without the closure and public sympathy that accompanies a divorce or a death. All the stages of grief are felt by the unrequited lover: denial and isolation, guilt, anger, bargaining, hope, and acceptance. Shame is the other side of this pain, because unrequited love grows in silence and feeds on a deep inner sense of lack of worth. And yet there is no shame in loving another human being; we are specifically designed for it.

Phillips argues in her penultimate chapter, ‘Primal Teacher’, that unrequited love can and should be transformational. Unrequited love forces the lover to notice what is missing from their own life. All forms of love are creative, and unrequited love is no exception. It can trigger immense creativity in the lover, but instead of being directed towards humiliating gestures that are rejected, it can be reclaimed and used, and can serve as a guide towards genuine accomplishment in real life. The traditional and perennial solution to unrequited love is the expression of that creativity. People write, paint, sculpt, plant, refurbish, build, and do all kinds of other creative things in the grip of unrequited love. This can both help to work it out of their system and do some good at the same time.

Psychologically, what can it tell you about yourself as a lover, as a soul, and as a flawed human being? The unrequited lover — particularly if the person is a ‘torchbearer’ — can be an addict in flight from something they cannot live with. The best way to short-circuit this kind of escapism is to turn and face the strange: to make the here-and-now as good as possible so that escape is no longer necessary. This involves focusing attention back to reality by addressing real conflicts and unhappiness, doing an inventory of strengths and assets, and working to make everyday life less of a burden. This is a frontline action anyone — married, single, same sex attracted, celibate — can take when they find themselves suffering from unrequited love. Unpacking past and current deeply felt hurts in with a trusted therapist can certainly form part of this process.

A second approach which can work, if handled with care, is through a form of exposure therapy — spending more time with the love-object, rather than avoiding them so as not to be tempted. One loss of temper, act of selfishness, or other manifestation of the beloved’s ugly side can be enough for some unrequited loves to dwindle significantly. Caution is needed: if the unrequited love is masochistic, the exposure of the beloved’s unattractive qualities can simply fuel the fire. But if it works, it can clear the way to a more considered and balanced relationship.

So much for the psychological aspects of unrequited love. But what about the spiritual? There is one aspect of the experience of unrequited love which is almost never explored, even by very devout people, and even though it is right under our noses. Unrequited love opens us up to the pain of God experienced in the human heart of Jesus. Scripture — especially the Old Testament — is full of the imagery of God as the angry and rejected lover, but also the yearning, unrequited and grieving lover: ‘Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord’ (Jer 31:20); ‘Or do you suppose it is in vain that the scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit which he has made to dwell in us”?’ (James 4:5).

God describes himself as an undesired and unattractive lover: ‘For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.’ (Is 53:2). The divine anger and pain of rejection lived out by Hosea finds expression in many unrequited human loves. The divine desire to hold and protect is pushed away: ‘How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!’ (Matt 23:37). The most excruciating moment is when Jesus stands silent and foolish on Pilate’s balcony, roundly rejected by the people he loved so desperately that he came to save them. This is the true moment of the crowning of thorns: the pressing down of the humiliation of rejected love on to the heart of God himself.

Meditating on the Old Testament has helped me to see God’s long courtship of Israel as his lived experience of unrequited love. God and Israel walk together and speak daily, but their conversations are often formal and stiff, and sometimes can only be prolonged with threats and drama. But as their relationship progresses, God also writes love poems to Israel through the psalms, prophets, and wisdom books, and leaves them lying around. Those who find these love poems become mystics. Most of us do not, and the awkward conversations continue.

The unrequited lover sees the beloved as perfected; as the finished product. This is how some have argued that God sees us outside of time, which is why he can continue to love and forgive us with infinite patience. Perhaps unrequited love is a mercifully brief flash of insight into the love which God has for each one of us.

Integrated sexuality — including the perennial human need for love — is the work of a lifetime. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that no one can assume they have achieved this state once and for all. Love has its own good times and bad times and its own laws of growth. Connecting with other human beings is usually the cure for most sicknesses of heart and connecting with reality is usually the cure for most mental disorders. Unrequited love should then be seen not as a curse, but as a symptom of a heart that needs to be released into the fresh air and sunshine, and to reconnect with the real (if less glamorous) loves with which it is surrounded by on a daily basis.

The pain of unrequited love is terrible, but it is finite. It is a cry of deepest need, an expression of our humanity and our awareness of our own worthlessness before the perfections of the beloved. It can be a foretaste of heaven — or perhaps of purgatory: the utter self-abnegation and humiliation of seeing one’s own flaws, writ large and inescapable. Like all other human loves, unrequited love must be purified of lust, self-pity, and envy in order to be of real use to God. Purification takes time, there are no short cuts or easy fixes, and the process of working through it is the healing. There is no charity in adultery or vow-breaking; there is very real charity in a self-sacrificial and purified unrequited love which runs its natural course and is then released.

I have often wondered if another reason unrequited loves seem to strike so hard and last so long is because God especially needs someone to pray for the love-object. The people God has variously put across my path and then into my heart are still there: they can and do resurface from time to time, without pain or regret, which I always take as a sign that they need me to pray for them.

This may be the deeper spiritual meaning and gift of unrequited love: a real participation in the pain of the Cross for the benefit of others. Whether the lover is married, professed celibate, or single, it means saying no to actions which harm the love-object, even though that harm might give the lover temporary relief. When unrequited love is offered to God as a real participation in the pain and loneliness of the Passion, it can bring the lover into closer communion with Christ. This pain is purifying, but like all suffering, unrequited love loses value when it is self-inflicted, and should not be deliberately sought. But if it appears, it can be welcomed and become slowly purified to the point where the lover can truly hear St Peter explaining, ‘Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings’ (1 Pt 4:12). ‘The disciple Jesus loved’ is the one who persevered on Good Friday, not the disciple who rowdily loved Jesus: learning to receive the love of Christ first can purify even the most painful unrequited love and transform it into something beautiful for God.

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