They don’t want you, but they won’t let you go
They don’t want you, but they won’t let you go
Why do we stay attached to someone who doesn’t truly choose us? What can Online Therapy do?
There are relationships that never fully declare themselves for what they are, yet never truly end either. They remain suspended, like a door left ajar that never really opens, but never completely closes.
The other person doesn’t choose you, but won’t let you go. They take one step forward and two steps back. They disappear, but always come back when you start to recover. And you stay there, trapped in a waiting that wears you down, fed by minimal gestures and half-spoken words.
This type of bond is not a relationship, but an emotional gray zone: not enough to feel loved, too much to be able to let go.
It is an exhausting condition, often invisible from the outside, that leaves you with doubts, guilt, and a growing emptiness inside. It’s not just about feelings, but about deep, often unconscious dynamics that touch personal worth, attachment, and the fear of being abandoned.
In this article I want to shed light on this experience, as common as it is painful: I will help you recognize it, understand it, and above all, understand how you can get out of it.
Because emotional freedom begins with awareness of what keeps us bound while giving nothing in return.
Article objectives
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Give a name and shape to a relational dynamic often lived in silence.
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Explore the psychological roots that generate and maintain this type of bond.
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Provide practical tools to distinguish an authentic bond from an emotional illusion.
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Offer reflections and support for those in ambiguous and draining relationships.
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Strengthen awareness of healthy love as a space of choice, not confusion.
Prisoners of the “Almost”: when love is never enough
There is a kind of relationship that has no precise name, yet leaves very real wounds. It is not a love story, but not a goodbye either. It is a gray territory where you live halfway: half involved, half ignored. It is the realm of the “almost” — almost a relationship, almost a bond, almost enough. But that “almost” feels like a constant lack, like a weight that builds day after day. At first you think it just takes a bit of patience, that sooner or later the other will understand, change, notice you. But time doesn’t bring clarity. It brings exhaustion.
Those who keep you in this ambiguous zone are often not bad people. They simply don’t know, or don’t want, to offer what you are looking for. Yet they always find a way to come back, precisely when you are trying to regain control of your story. Not because they truly love you, but because they don’t want to lose you completely. And so you stay. You cling to gestures that seem promising, to words that hint at a future but never materialize. You convince yourself it’s just a phase. Meanwhile, you stop listening to yourself.
The paradox is that the more you try to save that relationship, the more pieces of yourself you lose. You adapt, you shrink, you silence yourself so as not to seem “too much.” You find yourself searching for signs where there are none, justifying absences, interpreting silences. It is a slow, subtle erosion, often invisible to others. But you feel it clearly: that relationship does not nourish you, it consumes you.
Recognizing that you are a prisoner of ambiguity is the first step toward freeing yourself from it. Because real love leaves no doubts. It doesn’t hide, it doesn’t deny itself, it doesn’t come in bursts. Real love is not “almost.”
Invisible threads: what binds us even when it hurts
It is not because of fragility or lack of clarity that we remain trapped in ambiguous relationships. Often, behind that confusing bond lie invisible threads — old wounds, deep needs, dynamics acting beneath the surface. One of the most common is emotional ambivalence: the other person fears deep involvement, yet cannot bear the idea of losing your affection. They keep you close enough not to be alone, but never close enough to build something stable. It is an unstable dance between fear of intimacy and terror of rejection.
Other times, we become involved with personalities inclined toward relational narcissism: they do not seek connection, but validation. Your need for love becomes their mirror. They attract you, flatter you, then withdraw, maintaining a subtle but powerful control. More than love, it is a matter of emotional dominance.
And then there is emotional dependency: when you are the one who stays, despite everything. You cling to the idea that if you love enough, the other will change. You idealize them, justify them, confuse attachment with love. But in reality, it is fear of abandonment that binds you — that same fear you may have learned very early in your story.
Finally, there is insecure attachment, rooted in childhood experiences where love was inconsistent, conditional, or absent. When growing up meant fighting for attention and affection, it is easy to confuse love with instability, conquest, and pain.
Knowing these dynamics is not meant to assign blame, but to understand. Because only what is recognized can be transformed.
Intermittent love: the signs that are wearing you down
There are bonds that do not destroy through violence, but that slowly wear you down, one day at a time. They are subtle signals, mixed with moments of sudden tenderness, words that warm you and then precede coldness, gestures of affection that last only an instant. It is the mechanism of idealization and devaluation: one day you are everything, the next you are not enough. This emotional roller coaster creates dependency, like a reward that comes only if you stay, even when it hurts.
Another insidious sign is the classic “let’s stay friends.” On the surface it seems kind, but behind it lies the inability to fully let go of your presence. It is not an act of affection, but a strategy of emotional control: keeping you close enough not to miss you, but never close enough to build something real.
And then there are the sudden returns. They always happen at the same moment: when you begin to distance yourself, when something inside you is finally moving toward autonomy. It is as if the other senses your emotional awakening and comes back to extinguish it.
Meanwhile, you change. But not for the better. You find yourself more anxious, more insecure, more dependent on signals that never truly arrive. Guilt replaces clarity. Self-esteem drops, because you start to wonder if you are the one at fault. But you are not the problem. The problem is staying where your value is not consistently seen.
Invisible chains: what holds us even when we want to escape
Sometimes we know we should leave. We feel it clearly: that relationship is not good for us, it empties us, distances us from ourselves. And yet we stay. Not out of weakness, but because there are subtle, emotional, deeply rooted forces that bind us without our full awareness. One of the strongest is the hope that the other will change: every small opening, every kind word becomes an implicit promise that “maybe this time it will be different.” We live suspended in the wait for a love that will save us, instead of recognizing the one that is consuming us.
But it is not only hope. There is also emotional dependency, which makes us believe we cannot be okay without that person, even though that person is precisely the source of our distress. The bond becomes like an anchor thrown into emptiness: better to cling to something unstable than face the void of the unknown. It is there that loneliness finds fertile ground, bringing deep wounds to the surface: the feeling of being invisible, forgotten, irrelevant to the one you love.
Finally, there is something even deeper and harder to name: the breakdown of personal identity. In certain relationships, you lose yourself, piece by piece. You set aside desires, boundaries, needs. You become what is required to be accepted, even if it means ceasing to be yourself. And when you forget who you are, staying feels natural — because you no longer know where to return.
Starting again from yourself: the path that frees
Leaving an ambiguous relationship is not just a choice, it is an act of profound courage. But the first step is not leaving: it is clearly seeing what you are immersed in. When we wait for the other to become what they cannot be, we remain imprisoned in a fantasy that denies reality. We must name that dynamic, recognize it for what it is — not a difficult love, but an unbalanced and painful connection.
Once your eyes are open, the most delicate moment arrives: cutting contact. No half measures, no “let’s stay friends,” no “maybe in the future.” A real, clean break is needed, because only in silence can you begin to hear your own voice again. This is where the real work begins: returning to yourself, rewriting the internal narrative, rebuilding the self-esteem that for too long has rested on others’ gazes.
The path often passes through concrete and deep tools: therapy, which helps give meaning; journaling, which makes inner movements visible; the presence of healthy relationships, which act as good mirrors. Rebuilding yourself also means relearning how to love, but in a new way: with clear boundaries, with reciprocity, with the awareness that real love does not leave you in doubt. It makes you feel at home.
What can Online Therapy do?
Those who live within a toxic relationship often do not realize it immediately. There is confusion, guilt, prolonged waiting, hope that the other will change — while, slowly, contact with one’s inner voice is lost. In these draining dynamics, invisibility becomes normalized, crumbs of love are accepted, and one feels wrong every time they want something more. This is where online therapy can become a powerful, concrete, and transformative tool.
In a world where everything moves fast and bonds grow increasingly uncertain, having a safe space — even virtual — where you can be listened to without having to “perform” or justify yourself is already a form of care. Online therapy offers the opportunity to stop, to look inward, to finally give voice to what you feel. No matter where you are physically: with a screen and a connection you can bring into session everything that, in daily life, finds no space — the wounds you can’t explain, the confusion that clouds you, the thoughts that give you no peace.
Through a therapeutic path, even at a distance, you can begin to recognize the signs of emotional toxicity, dismantle repeating dynamics, and — step by step — rebuild your sense of worth. The therapist does not give ready-made solutions, but walks alongside you: helping you bring order, distinguish the need for love from dependency, cultivate healthy boundaries, and imagine a life where you no longer have to ask permission to be yourself.
Many people who begin this kind of path tell me: “I already feel lighter just for having started talking about it.” And this is the first step toward change: finding a space where you no longer have to pretend to be okay. Online therapy is not a second-rate alternative: it is a real possibility to care for yourself in a flexible, accessible, and deeply human way. Because even at a distance, the therapeutic relationship can become a secure base from which to start again, when everything else feels unstable.
“Letting go of someone who doesn’t choose you is not a defeat, it is an act of love toward yourself. Because those who truly want you do not make you doubt your worth.”
Riferimenti Bibliografici:
- Lowen, A. (1983). Il tradimento del corpo. Roma. Ed. Mediterranee.
- Johnson, S. (2008). Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. New York. Random House.
- Norwood, R. (2013). Donne che amano troppo. Milano: Feltrinelli.
For information, write to Dr. Jessica Zecchini.
Email contact: consulenza@jessicazecchini.it,
WhatsApp contact: +39 370 32 17 351.
