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?

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.

What happens?

There is another scenario:

How would you feel if your friend confided in you that she is cheating on her husband, knowing that he loves her deeply? What emotional and ethical considerations would you grapple with in response to her revelation?

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”.

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.

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.

Why do we still feel attached or jealous when a covert narcissist moves on, even after realizing their toxicity and the suffering they caused?

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.

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.

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

What would happen if the Soviet Union had simply annexed Manchuria after World War 2 or kept it independent as a puppet state allied them and separate from China as China was too weak too oppose it anyway?

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