What happens when your partner doesn't see the value in you and continuously hurts you by searching for something in others knowing it hurts you?

What happens?

“Making someone love me” is the most painful, most fruitless of efforts, because love cannot be manufactured in this way.

I believe this non-love is the best I can do and spend all my time and energy attempting to preserve the very thing that causes me pain.

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In one scenario, I stay with this partner, wonder why he doesn’t love me, and begin living in a world of my creation where I believe that, unfortunately, I am not worth loving.

If my “partner” didn’t see value in me and hurt me searching for something in others, I would remind myself that I cannot change people, “make them see” or “make them love me”.

There is another scenario:

What qualities do single women typically look for in a man? Is it a common preference for women to want a man who earns more than they do?

I would realize that it’s not my partner who is hurting me. I am hurting myself, by agreeing to stay with someone who is looking for something he is not finding in me.

I would leave this partner to grant him full freedom to go find whatever he is looking for and spend the time and energy that I put into that relationship getting to know myself. What I would find is someone flawed and worthy of love.

I would work hard at only being interested in people who are equally interested in me.

Is having white skin really that attractive?

I would ask myself why I consider it worth my time to be with someone who does not find me valuable. Identifying this answer will over time protect me from finding myself in this same predicament over and over.