When people feel compelled to seek someone who really loves them, it’s usually because, in the first few years of life, they had a brief experience of continuous good mothering (from either parent), but at some point the mothering parent lost interest, turned to another child, or simply rejected them.
The arbitrariness of this loss is too painful a concept for helpless children to bear. Rather than accept that their being given up was nothing personal, the children begin to feel like it must be their own fault. They may spend a lifetime blaming themselves, trying to find out what is wrong with them, trying to be the sort of person who will be really loved once more.
These people have to go through a great deal of grieving and pain before they can accept that they were ever really loved or that they were not the cause of the loss. Whatever the reason our parents gave up loving us, the betrayal experience must be dealt with- and then we must get on with it.
We don’t have the power to make someone love us.