Relationship Question!

[katylynnlee]

I haven't been on in a while, need to catch up on everything, but first I wanted to ask a general relationship question that has been sparking my curiosity lately. Does anyone believe that everyone should love themselves and not have self esteem issues before entering a serious relationship? I'm honestly on the fence about it myself. I can understand that self esteem issues can throw kinks into any relationship and that you should know who you are first, before trying to be involved with someone else. HOWEVER, I also don't see a problem in improving together, as a couple.

A real life example would be my SO and I. Though my self esteem is very low and needs to be worked on, I never would've realized how ridiculous I can act sometimes without help from my SO. I want to be a positive person, but had no idea how to get there. Even though my SO doesn't know how to help me, he can show me when I'm being negative, when I wouldn't have noticed myself. Now I can begin to address those issues by myself and work towards loving me.

A lot of my friends have broken up with their boyfriends lately to pursue their quest to find themselves. I am all for this, and a little jealous in a way that they have everything figured out, but who is to say that you have to do those things alone? Of course, you need to discover who you are by yourself, but why MUST you be single while doing so? I guess I do have an unfair "advantage" over my friends, because my boyfriend lives so far away and I can easily have my own identity without being engulfed in my SO's life. I am moving soon, and that may change, but I've been independent for long enough now to know a little of who I am. I just wanted to get everyones opinion on this issue, because I've talked to a lot of people who have different views.

Please, let me know yours.

[Haley53]

My opinion on it is that self-esteem and other like issues become a problem when they start negatively impacting the relationship.

Whether it's you have such low self-esteem that you can't trust your SO and become controlling (or even flip/feel green in the face everytime he so much as has a chat with another girl) or that you're so negative you're draining your partner's life force with your negativity, that's when it becomes a problem and when the relationship goes from potentially helpful to enabling the one partner to hold onto their issues; for example, if you feel worthless, and every time you express feeling worthless, your partner lavishes you in affectionate praise and compliments, it can cause some people to latch on to their worthlessness as a way of drawing out affection from their partner, and that sort of conditioning is never helpful for a relationship.

My other issue with it is the potential to become too dependent on your partner. There are a lot of people who have said they're alive because of their partner, that they don't feel like they're worth anything without their partner, that they never thought they were beautiful before their partner, etc. and if these things get wrapped up in "because of their partner," then I think it has the potential to cause serious issues, either in the relationship or further on down the line when it causes such a strain that they end up breaking up. I do think there's a difference between that and between growing together as a couple. Realising that you have the inclination of beating yourself up every time you get less than an A, for example, and making a conscious effort to change that in yourself is different than feeling like you're beautiful and intelligent because your partner thinks so. If without your partner, you start feeling the same self-esteem issues rear their ugly heads, then yes, you're probably filling that void with your partner, which is, in my opinion, rather unhealthy; such relationships, in my experience and from what I've seen, have never turned out.

I think you need to be your own person to be in a relationship. We all have issues, but we should continue working on them regardless of who points them out, as opposed to seeing our SOs as bandaids for issues that run deeper than that. My opinion is when you start feeling like you're nothing without someone, like you couldn't live without them, like they're the reason you're living/keeping you hanging on, or even like they're the reason you're making the changes, that's when you need to step back and recognise that you're your own person. We make the changes in ourselves, and while our partners might speed up the process of noticing what needs to be changed, they're things we'd likely have eventually recognised to begin with. So long as you can separate your issues from your partner and recognise the fact that you're the one doing the work and making the changes, and you're the one responsible for you becoming a better person, then I think you're fine. I have a problem with the way America, and maybe even Western culture, glorifies the idea that we need someone else to save us. We're responsible for changing our own shortcomings, even if others assist in making the process a little easier for us. In my opinion.

[ushiwakafox]

That's a really interesting thought.
I guess to me it could go either way. I think it depends on the relationship itself. Me personally, I am as confident as I am BECAUSE of my relationship with my SO. He's helped me find myself. For other people it may not be the same. Of course we started dating in high school, so we have become adults together and have grown up together. I think it's different for couples who did not experience growing up together. I think going through puberty together is definitely a big factor. A couple who is pretty much done with puberty might deal with low self esteem differently.
I hope that made sense, I'm like half awake right now lol. Thanks for that, I haven't thought that deeply all month lol

[LeilaniJoi]

"So long as you can separate your issues from your partner and recognise the fact that you're the one doing the work and making the changes, and you're the one responsible for you becoming a better person, then I think you're fine."

This. I will always be a work in progress but my partner helps give me the strength i need. Ultimately it's on me, but he is the completion i need to take those steps and work on my issues.

[Tooki]

As LeilaniJoi said ^^^

I think that the partner can definitely help you solve your own self-esteem problems, especially by motivating and assisting you!

[Zephii]

There's a grain of truth in the "You must love yourself for another to love you" thing, and that is, if you don't care about yourself and you don't know who you are it's much harder to recognise if your SO is mistreating you. If you put a low value on yourself, the world will not raise your price. It's also easier to find love if you're "whole" and confident in yourself, because humans are naturally attracted to that.

I don't necessarily think people who love themselves are free from self esteem issues though. I mean, I think I'm pretty awesome, I know who I am, what I bring to my marriage and what I expect in return. I usually know what I want and what I need - BUT I don't always like myself. There is a lot about myself I'd like to wake up and be without. And things in my relationship do strongly affect my self esteem - be it positive (praise and encouragement) or negative (rejection and criticism). Things outside the relationship make me question my worth too, and some days I'm so ashamed to be me I wont leave the house. I close all the blinds and make no nose and I pretend I'm not home. Granted, I assume most people are a bit more stable than I am, but I don't think even people with good self esteem and a positive self image are at the top of the world every day - so you need someone you can be "not yourself" with too.

I understand why people break up to go find themselves. If the relationship is bad for you, sometimes you lose yourself. Not all relationships help you grow, be yourself, follow your dreams, (or even in extreme cases, have your own dreams). I don't understand why someone would "take a break" to "find themselves" though. If you can't be yourself/ go soul searching within the relationship, going back to it wont help you hold onto the "you" that you find while apart. We all change as we mature. You need to be able to re-find yourself in a relationship or no long term relationship you have will survive. Just my opinion tho!

[ChibiFelicia]

I've suffered from self esteem issues and if it werent for my SO i think it wouldve taken me a lot longer to find myself. It's always been there i just never thought i should show it. He knew that. He knew i wasnt being myself. I agree with zephii that if you dont care about yourself it would be much harder to see your SO mistreating you. And my man knew that. He really disliked it when i did whatever i could to please him. It took me along time to get out of my shell. He guided me.

For me it wasnt about him motivating me or supporting me. He straight out told me, broke me down completely. And then i built myself up with a lil bit of guidance from him. Of course he supported me as a boyfriend but when it came to issues regarding myself, sometimes what i needed most from him was to be a totally removed from the situation and tell me how it is. I gues some ppl like me need to be bitch slapped a few times before we wake up. And now im free. Im free from the issues that screwed me over so badly.

Your question i think really depends on the couple. In hindsight i probably shouldnt have started a relationship with him because it wasnt right to put him in that situation. Some issues can be too tough to handle while in a relationship. Sometimes i wish i met him now as i am. I dont like thinking that he's seen me at my worst time but thats how a relationship is. Its not always happy and as people have already said, even if you know yourself, you love yourself, you still have those bad days. You are ultimately responsible for changing yourself, depending on your partner for your happiness or whatever is just asking too much. I see so many people who are emotionally depressed etc and they heavily depend on their partner to help them..it just never ends well. If they arent putting the effort into helping themselves, "becoming a better person" then i dont think they should be in a relationship.

[roosie]

I've been reading this blog for a while: bravenewkitty.com and I think she raises many interesting points. I just read this today and I thought it was quite relevant after reading your replies.. I will quote her:

"People who have a poor sense of self–that is, they don’t have positive beliefs and feelings about who they are and tend to believe the worst about themselves–often seek to feel better about themselves through their relationships. We do this with all relationships, but the romantic relationship usually has the most powerful allure. The relationship serves several purposes. One is that it creates a new focus and thus a distraction from a person’s poor sense of self, providing some relief from the infernal negativity inside a person’s head. Another is that it offers the unconscious an opportunity to re-create the parent/child bond and fix what went wrong the “first” time; our choice of significant other is always dictated by our relationship status with our parents. And yet another is that it fills the void where parental love and support should have been, doing for us what we didn’t learn to do for ourselves: namely, validate our own worthiness.

All of these, in particular the last one, are indicators of a reflected sense of self: a person who finds her value and worth in what others think of her rather than in what she thinks of herself. Because we have no control over other people’s thoughts or feelings, this other-directed sense of self worth creates huge fear and anxiety. We are always gauging other people’s words, moods, and deeds to determine our own; we are always seeking their approval and acceptance in order to feel safe and secure in our own environment.

--

This is why it is soooo important to develop a strong, internally-derived sense of who you are. Without it, you are like a quivering leaf, a potential victim of any breeze that comes along. But with it, you are like the tree itself, with deep, solid roots and a powerful trunk, capable of losing all of its leaves without losing its character or identity."

I don't necessary agree with everything she says but I still think her words have some truth on them, even though she is not a professional.

[roosie]

Here is another comment from the blog that is quite relevant:

"We must strive for an internal sense of self worth and validation; one that cares about other people’s opinions, but does not depend on them. It is the only way to truly weather the anxiety of interpersonal relationships, to withstand the disapproval and even the rejection of others, to express our thoughts and feelings honestly, and to soothe ourselves and maintain a sense of who we are no matter what happens to be going on in our lives. It may seem paradoxical, but having a strong, internally-derived sense of who we are is the only way to achieve real intimacy with another person because it is the only way we can develop the courage to be our true selves with them, warts, foibles, and all. And, it is the only way we are free to allow them to be themselves with us. This is not to say we won’t have struggles with intimacy, because being human and fallible, we will. But if we feel strong and confident about who we are, these struggles won’t destroy us.

Happiness is an inside job. Self esteem is an inside job. Morals and values are an inside job. Everything that matters in life, the things by which you define yourself, that determine the choices you make and the course of your life, comes from within. The internal can never go away. We have it as long as we are alive. Caring what other people think is normal, but if we define ourselves by it, we lose the one thing that is truly our own, the one thing that makes us who we are: our internal, subjective sense of who we are."

[lucybelle]

I have to get my SO in like 2 minutes but my main answer is: you need to be okay with yourself before you bring someone else into your life.

The bottom line is problems double when you deal with two people. They triple with 3. etc etc. I can understand if a depression or some other problem arises once you're already in a relationship- then it's time to work through it as a couple. But I truly believe one should NOT be in a relationship if there's something wrong. It will just make 2 people's lives miserable instead of 1.

[BabyDimples]

Does anyone believe that everyone should love themselves and not have self esteem issues before entering a serious relationship?
I defineatly don't believe that at all. Me and my boyfriend don't really like ourselves, though I'm not going to get into that. Thomas has made me apprecite myself a bit more than i did, and I don't think that not loving yourself, even as far as hating yourself, would make a difference in a serious relationship unless you make it affect the relationship. In a serious relationship, your partner is supposed to be there for you, encourage you, make you feel about yourself, and help to build up your own insecurities. So i actually think that it is a good thing to work on those things with your partner. In my opinion it brings you closer together.

[acrf92]

I like this quote: "By loving me, you are teaching me how to love myself." I find this relevant in my own relationship. From the small things like the fact that I've never been too fond of my nose (nothing particularly wrong with it, just never thought of it as one of my best features) but my SO apparently adores it so... I'm learning to look at things in a different light He is the eternal optimist and I am a realist... a.k.a pessimist :P So he's teaching me how to look on the bright side of life as well just by being his natural sunny self.
I think in any good relationship you learn things from one another and those may very well be things that help to build up one's self esteem etc. People like to call their spouses their "better half", right? So to me that implies a sense of completion attained by being with that person. Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic but I think we're all human and as the imperfect beings we are we can never be fully at peace with every single piece of our identities or lives or whatever. If we wait for that epiphany to occur before entering a relationship then some people might never get to experience the joys of being loved by someone and loving them in return...

[katylynnlee]

I don't think I'm quite as bad as some of the examples given, like being completely engulfed in my relationship or relying on the other person for happiness, but I do have some self esteem issues that effect our relationship at times. My main problem is taking things my SO says the wrong way and getting defensive about them. We use to argue a lot because of that, but now we've developed a way to communicate and tell each other what we're REALLY saying and not what the other person THINKS we're saying.

I do believe that it's very, very smart to know who you are before entering a relationship, but what I'm struggling with is what if you are already in one? My SO gets frustrated and wants to help me because I get so down sometimes and he knows that it's no way to be. I am at the point now where I'm trying to change, as opposed to before when I didn't think it was a big deal. So, this is where the root of the discussion comes from. Are you suppose to leave the person you love and the person who is supporting you to pursue yourself? When I started dating my SO, I was not aware I had poor self esteem at all because no one address it (except my mother, but she's my mom so...). I got into a relationship because I liked him, not because I needed acceptance or approval, though the fact he liked me back was very nice.

As I mentioned above, my friends have been breaking up with their boyfriends and have been so happy ever since. I'm not saying I'm not happy, but I look at their situations and how they realized that they were being treated badly and got out of it to pursue themselves. It almost makes me feel like I'm obligated to dump my SO because I want to be happy like them, but at the same time, I have absolutely no reason to break up with my boyfriend and I don't want to.

[katylynnlee]

I like this quote: "By loving me, you are teaching me how to love myself." I find this relevant in my own relationship. From the small things like the fact that I've never been too fond of my nose (nothing particularly wrong with it, just never thought of it as one of my best features) but my SO apparently adores it so... I'm learning to look at things in a different light He is the eternal optimist and I am a realist... a.k.a pessimist :P So he's teaching me how to look on the bright side of life as well just by being his natural sunny self.
I think in any good relationship you learn things from one another and those may very well be things that help to build up one's self esteem etc. People like to call their spouses their "better half", right? So to me that implies a sense of completion attained by being with that person. Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic but I think we're all human and as the imperfect beings we are we can never be fully at peace with every single piece of our identities or lives or whatever. If we wait for that epiphany to occur before entering a relationship then some people might never get to experience the joys of being loved by someone and loving them in return...

My SO isn't super optimistic, but he looks at things logically (I too am a "realist", for now!). He doesn't understand why I should be upset at or dislike myself, and he knows I need to work on how I think and react to situations.

My friend on the other hand, is extremely optimistic and I admire that greatly, but she is all into empowering woman to not settle and yadda yadda. It's great stuff to hear, if you're not already in a relationship. I love sunny, happy people, but my SO allows me to kind of look at my life in a different way. For example, I normally get really defensive over the tone of his voice sometimes, because being in a long distance relationship and only relying on the person's voice for emotion is a really hard thing to do. So, he'll have to just tell me that he's not angry, just tired and everything is better. Or he'll tell me to think about what I'm saying if I'm the one upset and break it down for me. I get a little frustrated by essentially being told I'm wrong, but once I calm down, I realize that yeah, I was being ridiculous and I apologize.

I'm just kind of stubborn and like to be right I guess, so I argue about silly little things. He just calls it "girl logic". :P

But point being, I really like what you said about how your partner can appreciate things you never thought about. Even if you were completely in love with yourself, you might still not like your hair or something trivial like that. But your SO might, and them complimenting you on that or telling you that you're beautiful despite your flaws, can open up your perception of yourself and you can begin to accept and love those things too.

(I get really inspired at 3:00AM, and come on here to blab so please ignore my half-awake blatherings )

[Haley53]

I feel like dumping your partner to go soul-searching when you're happy, content, and able to separate your own changes from your partner is about as ridiculous as using your partner to find that same happiness. If they were in bad/abusive relationships, then they're going to feel happy being out of it because there's a lot more to coming out of an abusive relationship than simply finding out who you truly are. There are senses of freedom and exploration that are amplified by finally haven broken free of a bad situation.

My opinion is that it's important to have support, but it's also important not to rely/depend completely on your SO. Support is good, but it's not good if it's 100% the reason you're doing your soul searching or working on your issues. However, there are times in relationships where we're all going to struggle. We're not always going to be perfect. And if we're lucky, we're going to continue to change and grow as our life carries us forward. Issues aren't something that ever come to an end, unfortunately. We never reach some magic point where we feel perfect and completely beyond any form of therapy or personal growth. We're going to experience the need to grow and pursue our lives while in relationships too. I think so long as a relationship allows for that growth, and is supportive of it, there's no need to dump your partner and you're not going to hit some massive realisation by doing so. It's when you're in bad situations, or when you're so dependent on your partner that they're the reason you live and breathe, that things become a problem, and that's when breaking away to do some soul searching is probably a good thing.

But in the end, we all have problems, and a little support working through them never hurt. It's simply a matter of making sure he's not doing the work and you're not relying on him to do it. So long as you've compromised for now and you're continuing to work towards a point where that compromise is no longer necessary, I don't think there's anything to worry about. I wouldn't look for there to be a problem with what honestly seems like a healthy enough arrangement, or else you're going to end up creating one.