If you’re repeatedly falling in love with someone who doesn’t show you the same affection, then it’s a huge concern. Falling in love with the wrong person may hurt you, but it also helps you become wiser and smarter. Most importantly, it helps you understand what you don’t want in a partner. However, if you notice that you are repeatedly falling in love with people who never love you back, then that’s a cause for concern.

If you find yourself getting attracted to people who never reciprocate your love, then maybe you need to take a minute and think about why this keeps happening. Everybody is deserving of true love, and so are you. So what is it that you are doing wrong? In this article, I discuss some reasons you keep falling in love with the wrong people.

1. You are impulsive when it comes to love

You look around and see everyone in stable relationships or marriages. All of them seem so happy and lucky to have each other, and the love they share makes you wish that you also had that in your life. Even though you feel happy for them, it sometimes makes you feel lonely and unloved.

This makes you rush into relationships with people who might not be looking for anything serious, but your impulsivity prevents you from seeing that. Because you are looking for love, you end up falling for the wrong people. Love can never be rushed, nor can it be forced. You need to be patient if you want true love in your life. Love will come to you when you are ready. And most importantly, it will come to you when you least expect it.

2. You are waiting for the wrong person to change

You know deep down that the person you’re in a relationship with will never change, but you keep convincing yourself that it’ll all be worth it in the end. Optimism is a good quality to have, but there is a difference between being optimistic and being delusional.

Love should not be about changing each other, nor should it be about making sure that your partner is exactly like you. If you cannot accept them for the way they are, then you are with them for the wrong reasons. On the other hand, the negative things that bother and hurt you about them—if they don’t respect you enough to want to work on themselves and change that, then you are simply not important to them.

You have to think about whether their strengths are overshadowing their flaws or if it is the other way around, and if you can live with it or not. But always remember that trying to change someone for the sake of love is not love.

3. You don’t love yourself

If you don’t love yourself, nobody else will. Unless you love yourself and accept yourself for who you are, you will never get the love you are hoping for. Unless you confront your demons and heal your emotional wounds, you cannot hope to love someone the right way.

When you are emotionally wounded and are afraid of confronting your pain, you are actually making it worse. Avoiding your pain or burying it is never going to make you feel better. You will keep falling in love with the wrong people because you are depending on them to make you feel better. You hope that they will give you the love you are unable to give yourself. But that’s not how love works. You need to first love and respect yourself for someone else to feel the same for you. Only then will you get the love you have been searching for your whole life.

4. You are afraid of being alone

Getting into a relationship because you feel alone is probably one of the biggest mistakes you can ever make when it comes to finding love. True love can never stem from desperation or the fear of being alone. Getting into a relationship just because everyone else is is never the right reason, and will only make you feel more alone later.

The need for attention and wanting someone to shower you with affection and love all the time, so that you feel a little less alone might help in the short-term, but it’s just a matter of time before the illusion breaks and you are forced to confront reality. Settling for less than what you deserve will cause you more pain, and by the time you realise this, you will be left with a broken heart.

Being alone is not a bad thing, rather, it can help you introspect and get some clarity as to what kind of person you are, and what kind of a person you want to be with. It can also help you understand love a lot better. Solitude is a valuable treasure, which must never be treated as a curse.

5. You are still holding onto the past

It’s really not a good idea to get into a new relationship, in order to move on from a previous one. You might feel good for a few days, but after a point, all of the unresolved issues are going to catch up with you.

You will keep falling in love with the wrong people until you work on yourself and your issues. It might start off as a rebound relationship, and before you know it, you have fallen for them, but unfortunately, they have not. It’s very important to recover from a relationship, make peace with it, move on, and then get involved with someone else.

Love should never be forced, nor can it be rushed. Getting into a relationship just for the sake of it will only bring you more pain in the long run. Wait for the right person to come along, and wait for love to find you—and trust me, it will find you when you least expect it.