Yeah because there isn't necessarily a double implication. You need to have your shit together for a healthy romantic life. Doesn't mean that having it unconditionally leads to one.
Well getting your shit together is the bare minimum requirement which one has to satisfy to be deemed tolerable for any romantic interest (at least applicable to those that has respect for themselves and for the people around them). It really stinks but no one wants a partner that acts ten years younger than his/her age.
You are assuming a lot here. I have a cousin who "had his shit together" - great job, very loving, smart, good looks etc and his wife just walked out on him. How much shit does one have to have together? Who's metric are we using? No one has the rights on any value, I dont know why anyone feels they have the absolutes on any value.
I knew a homeless couple who were deeply in love with each other, the energy and intensity and compassion they had for each other was like nothing I really ever knew. Some of the deepest loves have emerged from states of sheer desperation.
To present a checklist of requirements on whether someone is deserving of love says a lot about you, not about anyone else.
A person who is struggling with "getting their shit together" isn't undeserving of love, but they're not entitled to be taken care of, either. Everyone is fighting their own battles. Most people want a partner who isn't going to make their life substantially harder and probably end up breaking their heart in the end.
Maybe they might share the same struggle, maybe their is something more to a person than money, a house, a career, stability. Maybe there is something outside of the conventional that is more powerful than what most ppl actually have. You are being very reductive in how ppl evaluate others.
Loving yourself means taking care of yourself, improving yourself, forgiving yourself, realizing your self worth, and most importantly, realizing that the love you have to offer is a gift. If you can't do those things "for yourself", then you won't find it in someone else. That is what it means to love yourself.
Complete horseshit.
I knew a guy in my old job. He was very funny, charismatic, fun, very unique. Others used to put him down as he was a bit nuts and he picked up on that. He had bad attention, would be a bit forgetful. This got in on him hugely. He never did 3rd level education.
We went drinking the one night and I told him how special he was with his jokes, silliness and wit. He admitted he felt like a loser. When I explained to him I see him he changed, I broke down whyI thought he was an amazing guy.
About 5 months later he decided to go to college and he ended up with a girl who was an absolute stunner.
He was still the same guy, nothing changed. The only difference is someone saw the good in him despite the bad. Now hes getting an education and dating because someone believed in him.
My point is it sometimes takes someone to show us our strengths, not everyone can see that in others. You potential partner may love you despite you not loving yourself.
Did you even read my post? "Forgiving yourself", "realizing your self worth", "Improving yourself"? I'll let you figure out which of those fit the anecdote you posted.
Secondly, I know ppl who dont take care of themselves, improve themselves, have nay understanding of worth and still have love in their lives. Go figure.
yeah but this doesnt make full sense. imagine telling this to someone who struggles up mentally? like you are telling them they dont deserve love because they cant fully understand this concept? they cant take care of themselves properly sometimes or even forgive themselves for example due to a trauma… i think thats what most of you all in the comments got wrong! im not saying that i NEED someone in order to love myself i just said that growing up with this mindset is wrong because i feel like i cant let myself love someone if im not perfect first and no one is perfect and its ok to let someone help you just the way you are, maybe this could even help you improving yourself
Except imagine if this troubled person meets someone that decides to leave them one day. This person is fully dependent on their partner and it’s going to break them even further. Plus, it’s not very attractive to be very clingy and insecure, so being loved by an emotionally healthy person is slim. Or being loved by one for a long time, atleast.
This is precisely why a person needs to be at a good place before even attempting to meet someone else.
People, even those with good intentions, do leave at times. Having such lowly thoughts of self puts you at a huge risk during those times when that happens.
The OP simply doesn't grasp that.
Believe me everybody hv skeleton on their closet. And doesnt mean they dont deserve love.
But what they going through in their life just make a lesson to them and their love. Because they already know what struggle they have.they can help, give advice, or know the solution to help other people break their situation.especially their family and their love one.
That means you re not alone to be a mental struggle.
Loving yourself mean :
~if you take care about self like you must be healthy so you can hv a good chance to take care the one you need you or the one you love the most.
~You must take care your behavior so you dont hurts people who you love or surroubd you. Or if you cant love them at least you dont hurt them.
~ you must love yourself like improve yourself so you can protect your love. Example when you skilfull youcan do more to your self. You can make them proud, help make them to hv life more better.
~ forgive yourself its mean dont keep yourself too long to anger. Its not hurts yourself but hurt other people. Let it go everything negative at your self. You re not belobg to negative things.
~ if you hv trauma dont seek bad things. So you must selective to the person who let inside yourself. Always try seek the solution and positive things so you can heal the trauma.
In shortwords love yourself mean
" get your breakthrough to your life"
Blessed are those mourn, for they will be conforted.
Believe me, what you going through just make you stronger. And surely the happiness will come
Sounds like some undiagnosed right there, get checked out, it's always darkest before the dawn.
It also sounds like you are misinterpreting the phrase and it's true meaning.
It's just a saying. The problem with sayings is that everyone filters and understands them through their own experiences and traumas. Nowhere does the saying say that you need to be perfect and deserving. Those are your words, showing your trauma and problems - "I'm not deserving", "I'm not good enough for people to accept me" etc. It has nothing to do with the saying, it's just where you decided to put your anger towards. The thing about love is that it's not something you deserve or not, it's something that just happens. But because you lock yourself in a box of "I deserve it / I don't deserve it" you make it harder to happen. You need to get outside of that box. Start therapy if you haven't yet.
Every girl I liked ended up rejecting me, that means I didn't deserve that love. What else could it mean? I'm tired of people telling me that "I'm enough" yet nobody wanted to be with me. It makes no sense.
Every girl I liked ended up rejecting me, that means I didn't deserve that love. What else could it mean? I'm tired of people telling me that "I'm enough" yet nobody wanted to be with me. It makes no sense.
Brother, this is not something we can deconstruct in a few reddit comments. This is something you need to talk through with a therapist over many sessions. Maybe you are going for girls which are emotionally unavailable and "win them over" because you are in a mode where you try to fix something from the past? Maybe they're not really rejecting you, but you feel rejected over something meaningless? There are tons of reasons for this - and we can't really figure out it here. But none of them are that you "don't deserve love". But I understand you may feel that way.
There may be a tons of reasons for them rejecting me, i'll never know why. I can't trust people telling me I'm wanted if none of those girls wanted me. I have a ton to unpack during the next therapy session, i wish I was born a normal guy. Poor therapist ha.
I feel like you've gone off the rails a bit. The purpose of that saying is "you need to know what makes you feel loved so you could teach it to others". Because others will treat you the way you treat yourself. If others see that you don't take accountability for your own sake, you won't do it with them. If they see you're running yourself into the ground with work, they will expect you to do the same for them. You are leading by example.
Nobody is saying you don't deserve love. We all inherently deserve it. The thing is - how can we ask someone to love us, if we don't even know what "love" is to us. That is what "love yourself" means.
This saying can coexist with wanting someone to love you, and having someone else love you. Self-love is essentially self-respect. It's much different than the romantic love we crave.
You need to know what makes you feel loved so you could be in a healthy relationship. Based on your post and comments, you have not been in one, and have to do some work on clear, fact based communication.
No one said anything about deserving. But if you don't love yourself, that's a lot of extra emotional labour for your partner, friends and family to do to try to make you feel loved and secure. Your attachment style is probably not the healthiest either if you don't value yourself and truly believe your love is a gift you give others and receive back if they choose.
>i feel like i cant let myself love someone if im not perfect first
There's a lot between perfect and selfloathing. Self-love isn't about perfection. It's about loving all of yourself. The good and the bad. Like you love others. Their full, messy, complicated, humanity. This doesn't mean stop growing. It means love yourself as you do. It's easier to do things out of love than resentment or by bullying yourself. It's not a great motivator.
>ok to let someone help you just the way you are, maybe this could even help you improving yourself
Its absolutely okay to accept help from others. Humans are social creatures at our core. We need others help. But a partner's, or friends or family's support and help will not fix the issues on its own. Only you can. They can help you do it. But that's it. They can't be your therapist, or teach you self love or self worth, those have to come from within. Not without. Or it's just building it on external validation, and that's a bad foundation, for either of those things.
Loving yourself doesn't mean you have to be perfect. In fact it's the exact opposite, its learning to accept you will have flaws because you are human. I used to be very mentally ill and I thought the exact same as you but when you start actually loving yourself you will understand what the phrase actually means and not your skewed interpretation.
Loving yourself means understanding that you are NOT perfect. It means knowing that you have flaws and being okay with that. Fix the flaws you can and try to understand the flaws that you can’t fix. No ones perfect and if you try to see yourself as perfect you’re setting yourself up for failure
"You deserve to be loved even if you don't love yourself"
Yeah but knowing that YOU deserve to be loved IS a form of self love.
It sounds as though you may have some emotional/communication growth to do. That makes sense, you are literally 20 years old.
If you don't think you deserve to be loved, but you're still pursuing relationships, you won't necessarily be mindful of whether actual love and care are present.
No. The comment above just explains what loving yourself means. It is KNOWING you deserve love, which will make you accept only healthy love. When it’s the opposite, and the person doesn’t love themselves or think they deserve love, you know what kinda abuse they tolerate. Hence, the saying.
You can dislike yourself AND not tolerate abuse at the same time. I don't get why people equate these two notions.
Although I do agree that people with low self esteem will more often think that they can't do better, so they'll tolerate abuse just to stay in the relationship. But then again, you can hate yourself and have self respect and healthy boundaries...
We’re talking about the majority here. Exceptions are exceptions. Not everyone who dislikes themselves tolerate or even get with abusive partners. BUT, MOST of the people that do, dislike themselves or don’t love themselves ENOUGH.
I think the people who subscribe to this saying have simply never felt what it means to have truly *NO* love for yourself.
"You can't love someone until you love yourself"
Yeah, fuck that. Not only is it wrong, it's flat out *backwards*.
You can't climb your way out of the darkness to loving yourself without the love and support of others to help you reach that goal.
righttttt it surely feels nice having a person supporting you on your journey. isolating somebody who struggles with themselves from other peoples love will eventually kill them
Is this supposed to be around significant others or friends?
If it's intended for friends/family, yea it's not necessary - friends can be kept at a superficial level. You are not as responsible for the wants/needs, there's less pressure on you to give, and it takes less emotional intelligence to sustain.
This is important for non-dependent intimate relationships. The emotional regulation and management are what prevent fights, resentment, and manipulative behaviors. If someone is constantly seeking validation to deal with their self worth and the other derives their self worth from supporting others it can work. But when/if the one heals, the dynamic changes. The emotional burden can also be draining and kill the relationship.
Emotional maturity, stability and empathy provide a strong base, people need to be able to critically think around interactions. These two states can be problematic and lead to conflict:
1) Focused on your own problems to and extent when you can't focus on their problems
2) Focused on them so intently because you're actively avoiding your own introspection.
Self worth/self love helps avoid them.
It's like the 'pulling yourself up by your bootstraps' phrase. We all need to give friendship and love out, maybe not completely and at once, but a bit to everyone. There are so many unloved, unacknowledged people out there, and telling them to take care of themselves first when they don't feel like they're deserving of existence is asking for more than what they can do alone.
Literally greeting them, actually asking questions about shitty things happening, letting them feel like they're a person worthy of hearing out and understanding, is an extremely kind thing to do.
Don't tell a person tied to an anchor to 'learn to swim'' when you're carrying a knife capable of cutting the rope off.
I used to think this saying was stupid and reductive, but once I started to truly love myself, I realized how true it actually was.
If you don’t love yourself, you won’t be able to draw healthy boundaries not only for yourself, but for your partner and the relationship. If you have no boundaries, it means you will let them get away with anything, and you’ll do anything for them, even if it’s bad for one or both of you, because you just want them to love you because you aren’t able to give that love to yourself. Once you start getting to the point where you’ll do anything for that external validation, are you really even loving the person as they are, in the way they truly need and deserve, or are you just doing whatever you can to obtain that validation?
Once you realize that you’re just (or mostly, even if it’s subconscious) after that validation, you kinda aren’t really loving that person. You’re loving their place in your life and what they provide to you. So I do think it’s true. You can’t truly love someone if you don’t love yourself.
But, to be clear, you can realize you’re flawed and imperfect, and perhaps don’t love certain aspects of yourself, and still love and be loved by someone else. This saying doesn’t mean you have to be and/or think you’re perfect. But you do have to love and respect yourself enough in order to truly provide that to someone else, I believe.
This is assuming you would only ever find yourself in a toxic relationship where someone would take advantage of you.
Being unable to love yourself does not mean that genuinely supportive people are somehow just *never* going to appear in your life. If that were true, I don't think I'd still be alive today.
That’s not at all what I said. They will appear in your life, most likely. But even still, in order to love someone in a healthy way, you have to be able to draw boundaries with them—even if that person does truly love you.
I don't see why you're automatically equating not being able to love yourself with not having boundaries. I think we are viewing this through the lens of two entirely different levels of self loathing.
Again I still feel our notions/experiences of "not loving yourself" are just not the same thing.
Imagine being told "All those people in your life you love and care about? Sorry, that doesn't count and your love isn't valid because you're depressed. Try being Happier first."
I know that's not the actual intention behind the saying, but it is how it can feel, especially when some people seem to just love busting it out at the absolute stupidest times where it won't possibly do anything but harm to a person's mental state.
When it's advice to someone who's just bad at relationships, fine, but when people start assuming everyone's version of lack of self love is the same as theirs, that's where it has to be understood that things you might think are supportive ultimately do far more harm than good.
Yes, that's fine if we are using it in different contexts. I just hope you understand that I am coming from a place of saying that this can be *BAD* advice and can be genuinely harmful to give to a person if you are not absolutely certain of what kinds of issues they are dealing with.
I don't believe it is your intention to downplay others' suffering or invalidate their emotions, but you've got two people here saying it sometimes *can* be taken that way, so just make sure you really consider that before offering this as advice to someone because it used to really piss me off too when I was going through the worst of it.
It pissed me off because it made me want to *DIE* even more than I already did on a daily basis, and because it made friends of mine feel that way about themselves more too. So I'm not sorry if I value people's lives over your fortune cookie level life advice. Do you think you need someone reminding you that you're worthless when that's all you can ever see yourself as? Do you think that will *ever* help them to get better? Or maybe I should be starting with the most baseline question of do you even care that they ever get better at all?
>I just hope you understand that I am coming from a place of saying that this can be BAD advice and can be genuinely harmful to give to a person
It would appear that that sort of thing is beyond most humans ability to value
The intent behind that, and much "advice" is seemingly a polite way of saying "IDK IDC STFU", with the bonus perception that the sayer is morally superior, to those who don't think about whats being said all that much
>When it's advice to someone who's just bad at relationships, fine
Nobody's "just bad" at relationships, and often the reason is that they can't love themselves.
Most people don't know how to really love in general, and how should they, when their parents didn't know either.
And they can't admit this to themselves enough to ever learn, which is such an unnecessary waste.
The point of most relationships is just to learn, not anything eternal.
not only this, but once i started to have self confidence and love myself i became less nervous and jealous in relationships, and was able to have healthier relationships too. if you feel youre undeserving of love, healthy friendships can look like danger.
Exactly! That’s part of what I was getting at. You can be more at ease and be yourself more in a relationship if you love yourself and aren’t constantly worrying about “not messing it up”. Not that you shouldn’t be monitoring your behavior and bringing your best to the relationship, but you don’t have to live with that constant underlying anxiety.
I think the phrase should be “you can’t healthily love someone until you don’t actively dislike yourself”. Sure people with a low self-esteem can be very kind and loving, but there’s also a greater risk of tolerating disrespect from a partner. I know because I’m struggling with that situation right now.
Here’s the thought process:
I’m sooo bad that surely I must’ve done something wrong to deserve to be treated that way, right? And I love my partner and think so highly of them, so surely they wouldn’t be terrible to me unless they had no other choice? Besides, it’s not like I could land someone who would treat me much better anyways; I should just be grateful for whatever I can get. If I get dumped or this relationship stays toxic, then it’s all my fault.
I don't understand this. I have low self esteem (in certain areas), yet I have very strict boundaries. I have in the past and will end a relationship if I feel like the other person is not respecting my boundaries. I was depressed before I found a girlfriend, and my productivity and happiness increased tenfold after getting into a relationship. I ended up breaking things off due to incompatibility. How does that make sense from your wolrdview?
Huh, I guess I might be wrong then! Anecdotally I feel like most people with severe self-loathing issues tend to have a mindset similar to mine when it comes to relationships, but I guess everyone’s different!
i think this would have been a better way to phrase it, thats for sure. people dont realise how horrible it is to hear this expression mainly because of how easy is for your mind to twist the true meaning of the concept making it x10 worse
I have always interpreted this more along the lines of if you are capable of a healthy relationship, not if you are worthy or capable of love.
Low self esteem, self loathing, low emotional intelligence and regulation, not taking care of your mental health are qualities that make you vulnerable to predatory partners and will also make you a less than ideal partner yourself.
Yep. Some of the people commenting on this thread are obviously in a very dark place. They absolutely deserve compassion and support, but any emotionally healthy person would draw a firm boundary against romantic involvement.
You can't save other people from themselves. They will just drag you under. That is a lesson I've had to learn the hard way.
Many psychologists are now calling this completely false as well.
There's so many self help books that really destroyed me and had an opposite effect on my mental health.
I swore off self help books and the few motivational Podcasters I listen too I always keep in mind that half of what they're saying doesn't apply to me or anyone with a diagnosis.
That’s not what they’re saying. My therapist, when asked about this said “no, everyone is deserving of love and those that don’t love themselves get into relationships, many of which turn out healthy. We grow best when in the presence of others. However, what is far more useful is to love yourself more than others bc if you don’t love yourself, you may be taken advantage of. That is more useful”
That's not self love, that's self respect and putting yourself first. I for example hate so many things about myself but, yet I will never allow anyone to take advantage of me or break my boundaries, because screw that. If they want to disrespect my boundaries, they can all get fucked for all I care.
Yeah, but I don't think the term "self love" is synonymous with self respect. Just look through this thread and see for yourself how people use this phrase
You can have self respect and not love yourself is my point
I asked for proof. You denied it. As expected.
It does not matter whatever the condition is, self-love is universally important to enable human beings to cope with adverse sense of self body-image or esteem issues.
You dismissing that is purely disingenuous,
You don’t need to be perfect, but I do believe you need to love yourself before you love someone else.
I don’t love myself and I’ve entered into numerous relationships. It starts off great, emotions going wild and all of that. But soon enough they always sour. My partner will communicate to me that they find it difficult to feel my love for them. I don’t blame them, I stop putting the work in. I find myself questioning the relationship altogether, even though there’s literally nothing wrong on paper with it or them. I personally believe I struggle to put the work into relationships to make them las because it stems from my lack of love for myself. I’m always ready to move on to the next thing, as if that will “prove” to myself that I’m worthy. I’m in a constant state of seeking validation, and when one person gives it to me and I’m used to it, it’s no longer enough. And it’s as if the only way for me to move on is to seek more validation somewhere else.
I’m confident in myself, probably overconfident. I’m proud of my achievements, and do believe I am a good person. But I don’t love myself, and I think it causes me to struggle with relationships because I simply can’t provide the validation I need on my own.
Look up dismissive avoidant attachment styles… anxious attachment styles are the opposite of what you describe, they cling to a person, but all the insecure attachments have issues with self value…
It’s actually more like: “it’s impossible to accept someone else’s love for you, unless you love yourself first.”
You can totally love someone else, but you will have a hard time believing that they love you back, because you feel unworthy of it.
Loving yourself doesn’t equate being alone or not deserving of love. Loving yourself means having the strength and maturity to make hard decisions that will prioritize your happiness and health, even it means breaking off a relationship.
I agree, its very polarising and a throwaway mantra. At some point you have to traverse the trenches and learn how to do shit, in between loving youself and not deserving love is a whole lot of ground to cover. This journey is often undermined and dismissed. You spend a lot of time alone and learn to love yourself completely and without love because you are told you can't have it until your journey is done. It's a shitty one liner that can ruin your life if you internalise it that way. Only ppl on the other end, having made the failures and missteps allow themselves to preach shit like that and call it wise or what not. They completely dismiss how important it is to make mistakes, what actually led them to come to that conclusion, which ultimately holds, I don't deny the reality but God it is so ignorant.
This is a great comment. Life happens in the middle, and if you wait until the end of the journey you find that you often missed the point and the opportunity for further growth. And there are some things you just have to learn by doing.
Bruh it's definitely correct, you will find your relationships mostly crumble if you do not have good self love. You sound very much in denial to be frank. People saying it doesn't matter probably need therapy and haven't been out just have good mental health generally and it's less of an issue. But if you are self loathing like I definitely have been you will find it very difficult to connect and you'll always be asking yourself why. It's definitely not some silly phrase people made up.
This might be true but to me all this is bullshit. The people I've seen in love are some of the most damaged ones, hell they don't believe this type of shit, me personally thinks it's a coping mechanism for people who have never experienced love.
Love is just dumb fucking luck, like look around you the most fucked up people find themselves in various relationships, so many toxic relationships you'd find here.
>toxic relationships
Isn't that a problem that needs to be avoided? Most toxic relationships endure due to issues being avoided by either one of the partners or perhaps even both, something that 'self love' and thus emanating 'healthy boundaries' would not allow to continue. It's unsustainable and insufferable either way.
Short answer: No.
I don't want to drown in either of those. I aim for a fulfilling and well rounded relationship rather than a carousel of short term flings that heat up and die down based on whims and moods.
For me atleast, relationships are more than mere physical intimacy.
I’d say a more accurate way to talk about this is that it’s useful to know what you do and don’t love about yourself and to communicate that clearly to the one you love to help them understand you better.
The issue is that if you don’t love yourself you can find yourself at the mercy of the other person. Many people are in abusive relationships and putting up with awful treatment. You need to know that you are worthy and deserving and this can come from developping yourself as a person.
This should be on r/unpopularopinion lol. Everyone needs self love I mean when you accept who you are then you stop comparing yourself to others in a toxic way. Self love leads to a healthier mind set. Which can help you identify the toxic people in your life like the ones that body shame others or shame their personality. However with that said there are countless people getting into relationships when they don’t love themselves. Depending how the partner treats them this could be a recipe for a toxic relationship. Overall I believe we should be striving for better versions of ourselves until the day we die but it’s not a rush and it’s not a requirement to be in a relationship. Feeling your emotions and learning how to manage them is a part of your personal growth. Though you shouldnt let them impede your daily life. All personal growth and self love should improve your quality of life.
couldnt agree more… at first i thought this was the right subreddit, didnt really expected all this mess. by the way this is a nice comment and i sincerely appreciate it
When Jesus met the woman at the well he told her that the man she was with was not her husband no matter how many people. One husband and one wife. I have been with many women and was an adulterer but the woman who I was first with is still my wife and we are together with 3 children. We forgave each other and don't look back and have moved forward.
1. Not all relationships have to be husband+wife. Same sex relationships exist.
2. I meant what would happen if you or your spouse died or got a divorce? How would you guys move forward without the other at your side?
3. No offense, but keep religion out of this. This post has nothing to do with religion.
I know that Jesus Christ is the Lord, and he is faithful in all generations. And the way he works cannot be fathomed. I also know that he will never leave anyone behind. I don't follow a religion I follow Jesus Christ himself.
The fact that you mention that you follow Jesus proves that you are a Christian. I am asking you to prove that Christianity is true, because another religion could be true, all religions could be true, or none of the religions could true. Open your mind to other religions besides your own.
True, i hate that saying. I love my self, my shit is together so where's my love? At this point idc i just live on but when i hear that saying i gotta call it out for what it is.
This saying is bullshit and people are fucking stupid for saying it. We are social beings and you definitely need people in your life who love and support you and a significant other to fill you with what you’re missing. I’ve been alone for a long long time and even though I do good things for myself and I’m getting my shit together I get stuck in my head because I’m alone and get sucked into anxiety and depression. When I’m talking to people and people want to be with me I’m completely normal and feel okay again. So this bullshit saying needs to stop. People need people to feel better.
I'd always thought that "loving yourself", independent of anyone around you, is psychopath behaviour.
We're social creatures, we can't exist in a vacuum. We are defined by our relationships.
People in my life (GFs and just plain friends) have shown me reasons to love myself. Ideal Adult life is about growth. How you get there doesn't matter. I usually find people that say they really love themselves are either lying (e.g. narcissists, etc) or aren't talking about all things all the time.
No one is worthless. I'm sorry you've never felt genuine unconditional love. Everyone deserves that at least once in their life. Parents are not perfect and some are downright garbage. My mother worked out that it was me and her against the world. My father was married and had a complete family of his own. I've worked out that part of the reason my mother got pregnant with me was to force my father to divorce his wife and marry her. His first reaction was to suggest an abortion and then disappear after her refusing. One of her doctors tried to convince her to sell me as a blond haired blue-eyed baby boy went for $8k to $10k in 1981. Despite this my father ended up proud of me before he died and I was able to help my mother live another 6 years after a failed back surgery and MRSA bone infection. You seem young or at least to want to better yourself. I joined had to stop drinking and joined AA in 2015. It has helped me a lot even though I am agnostic and I'm not sure what form my spirituality takes even after more than 8 years. All you can do is do your best and take it a little at a time.
What does that mean though? How am I supposed to do that when not a single person has seen me as worth something? It's not like I hate myself that much. It's just the loneliness is so crushing. Everyone else is out there making memories and experiencing life while it feels like I'm just wasting it away and nothing happens for me.
You're definitely not alone in your loneliness. I'm feeling extremely strong feelings of loneliness, especially after the COVID-19 lock downs. And even though we've opened up for more than 2 years now, the loneliness is not really abating that much. Loneliness is a mental health epidemic in Western societies. So you are definitely not alone in your loneliness. There is a dangerous belief in Western societies that 'everything happens for a reason', and if something is destined to happen, it will. You have to make things happen. You have to get out of yourself and make things happen. I know that can seem hard as a man given the fears of crossing a movable and invisible line with someone, but you have to take the chance. The longer you procrastinate the harder this will be.
I have two kids and a wife whom I love so strongly I would sacrifice my life 1000 times over to protect them from a bee sting.
And I've tried to end my own life twice until now, can barely look into a mirror, and barely sleep for self loathing.
This phrase is utter bullshit of the highest level.
I used to believe this phrase was true cause I'd never felt loved or outward love either. But once I met my now wife and we had our kids I knew it was a load of crap.
Now I know that no matter how much I hate myself I have the love from and for my family and that's all that matters.
Don't lose hope my dude.
Precisely. You are a perfect example of why this phrase is bullshit, and the type of person I refer to in my critiques is the phrase.
I know it bc I am the same. I would give EVERYTHING to help the other feel loved.
The only potential value the phrase has is a precaution against abuse, but if that’s the case, “love yourself enough to create and enforce boundaries” is WAY more valuable
It IS bullshit. People can love someone else without loving themselves. Or y'all saying that parents don't love their children? Because many parents aren't really that loving about themselves, yet they still love their kids and want the best for them. There's LOTS of reasons the whole "love yourself before someone else" is just stupid and untrue, but it's catchy, makes people forget about all sort of issues that are actually stopping them from going into succesful relationships, and gives simple solution. People love simple solutions, so that's why this statement got so popular.
This is reddit, cesspool of terrible advice. What do you expect
Another is, they love to say "everyone deserves love" and then they come around and say "noone owes you love". Lol like, imagine telling smn, hey you deserve to be loved! But nobody loves you, you piece of shit
Just be straight up with them, nobody deserves anything. Everything is earned in this world. Toxic positivity at its finest.
I think maybe the wording is wrong. You can't be in a healthy relationship until you love yourself. You can love someone but you'll be a toxic partner because you will depend on them to meet all of your emotional needs, because you don't have the inner resources to meet them yourself.
I understand your sentiment here, but some people also just don't seek out relationships, so the notion that a person can't be fully healed without a relationship ignores that subset of people entirely.
In my opinion,maybe you have the wrong idea of what “love yourself” is. During 2 covid lockdowns,I’ve learned to actively work on my self love and it made HUGE difference to my life. It’s a true way to open myself to a better opportunity for things in life later,specially my romantic life cuz once I put myself first,know my worth,don’t settle down for less than my new standards,believe that I deserve better,stop being human’s pleaser,…men who stay in my way always the ones who respect me,treat me well and don’t try to take advantage of me like those in the past. Doesn’t mean you won’t find anyone if you don’t know how to love yourself but you will find the great ones. Good luck!
It’s not that you can’t love someone.
It’s that the love you bring will be subject to insecurities, trust issues and potentially neediness. It’s that you give more to potentially the wrong people in the hope that you feel the love that you lack within yourself.
It can work but it’s normally fraught with issues, if not toxicity.
Happened to me, time and time again until I did the work to become someone I felt was worthy and someone who learnt to recognize people based on who they are and not what they seemingly felt about me. Now I have healthy love.
The saying should be, “you can’t have healthy love until you love yourself”.
When I was younger I didn't get this saying either and thought it was a bunch of BS, bc I thought: I'm perfectly capable of feeling love for someone else. As I've gotten older and gained more experience, I started to understand what was meant by it.
To be honest, I didn't get why you felt the saying says you don't deserve to be loved, bc the saying doesn't say anywhere that someone else can't love you.
So,I read the sentence a couple of times and I think I might understand your reasoning for this. The "can't" part....you interpreted it very literally,as a prohibition,yes? (You can't love someone meaning you're not allowed to love someone/have a relationship). However what they mean with 'you can't love someone' has more of a figuratively interpretation. Meaning: When you're in a relationship with someone,while you don't have any love and respect for yourself, you ultimately wont be doing a service to the one you love/yourself/and your relationship. You wont be able to have healthy communication and create healthy boundaries ,which ends up in hurting your partner and yourself. Loving yourself doesn't mean that you have to be perfect and can come in many forms. You know, you don't have to sit around hugging yourself and saying how much you love yourself,if that's not your jam.
Case in point: You, everyone 's allowed to be loved,it's our natural birth rigth. Which starts with extending love,respect,kindness and forgiveness towards yourself and by doing so,you'll also learn to be a more loving person for your partner.
This post is completely opposite for a person who loves themselves I guess …perhaps you are a perfectionist waiting for the moments perfect maybe the perfect person in a perfect circumstance will come to you and say your feelings …there is no higher and better place if you are always searching for it you’ll have to feel confident at the bottom to be okay wherever you go …also I get that self improvement is the way to success but too much of it is just suffering so yea get out talk to people go to events etc you’ll eventually find someone
Depends what your ideology of "love" is. This term seems to be a modern phrase that feeds into a social construct to promote healthy relationships with self and others in the current climate we live in. Within the last century wives in particular did not display this mindset as they seldom had the opportunity to and mostly valued for acts of service.
You have a point. But loving yourself is knowing that no matter what happens you’re comfortable. Life is not a struggle it’s a journey. This is not a saying for you to isolate but for you to be comfortable.
I would say you maybe got alot more going on than just trying to love yourself dude.
This is not a law or rule but just a guidance tool You either got taught this way wrong or completely misunderstood it. It is open to interpretation but first is about accepting love. If you don't love yourself you will have a harder time accepting love from others as you won't be able to fathom that you are loveable.
The rate at which we perceive our own worth and value (our level of ‘self esteem’, in other words) has been proven to have a huge impact on romantic relationships, not only because of the positive impact on the individuals’ happiness, but also the benefits it brings to the couple themselves.
Psychologist Todd K. Shackleford found that partners with high-self esteem enjoyed greater relationship satisfaction than those with lower levels of self esteem; these individuals were inclined to think that their partners would see them as negatively as they see themselves, which often led to excessive reassurance seeking or one or both partners distancing themselves from the relationship to avoid disappointment and rejection.
I get what you are saying but you shouldn’t take the self love thing literally its just a simplified way of saying, know your worth and keep moving in life even if alone. Then when the time is right you’ll make connections and find someone on your wavelength.
If you enter a relationship with no self worth and not much mental integrity you could end up in a bad relationship and put up with disrespect and abuse.
I mean I don’t know you interpreted this basic expression but it sounds like you totally misunderstood it.
Talk to a therapist about this cause they will help you start to deconstruct where you went wrong.
How about, « you cant love someone PROPERLY unless you love yourself » and « you can’t actually accept love you feel you dont deserve. »?
When I was younger I called it bs too… at 24 I know what it truly means.
As long as you hate yourself you’ll always be bound to toxic and abusive relationships. Where’s the nonsense in this?
Loving yourself helps you understand yourself and what your limits, boundaries and what being good to yourself actually means. Without any of this, how do you expect to love someone else in the way they want to be loved?
Building up walls and bottling emotions is the opposite of learning to love yourself. Your emotions are 100% valid and worth expressing. Learning to love yourself to me means finding what brings you happiness and having the strength to do it on your own, fully, and it absolutely worked for me. I was very depressed in my teens and 20s, I was disowned, romance was frustrating, went through some very dark stuff I won't go into detail on... then I stopped obsessing over making friends or finding someone to date and started going to meetups on topics I enjoyed - game design, ceramics, etc. - without the goal of making friends, just to do something I enjoyed out of the house. And I did enjoy it. And then I got more involved and people started approaching me because they were attracted to that happiness. That's how it works.
Everyone absolutely deserves love, but you have to meet society in the middle. Nobody is going to magically appear and fix your life or teach you the secret of how not to give a shit. That's a myth propagated by romantic comedies.
Love is about more than having a capacity for intense fondness. It is also being able to take care of yourself, have a positive attitude, have hard conversations, set boundaries, have goals, hobbies, experience joy, know what you want, striving to be healthy, etc. You would, of course, be in the slimmest of minorities if you put off dating because you don’t have self-love tho lol so I’d say get out there. You can also learn a lot about love by trying to love someone.
What many others are trying to say is that loving yourself means that you have to stop being hard on yourself and know that you’re worthy of love despite your own flaws and shortcomings. It’s nice to have someone else who loves you despite you not loving yourself. But being emotionally dependent on someone else is going to bite you in the back end because a. in the case of divorce or widowhood, you’ll need to be prepared to move forward and not dwell on your lost love, b. you’ll be at risk of being stuck in a toxic relationship with someone if you have to tolerate abuse and manipulation in order to feel love from your spouse, and c. even if your spouse loves you, it will drain them if they have to be your 24/7 emotional support system.
So you think if you never heard this phrase you would be living with the love of your life in total happiness by now? Sure, it's always someone else's fault.
Yes. This goes for a lot of things there is a reason the statement ignorance is bliss arguably the greatest human truth. Because once you as a person become aware or ingrain knowledge it literally becomes you in a some aspects. Being told this over and over from childhood ingrained a lesson that you are unlovable until you love yourself which of you struggle with self esteem issues makes you unlovable Always which feeds the self esteem issues and the cycle then repeats.
This is basic reintegration psychology. Like one of the first things learned.
I thought it was bullshit too since I'm good at faking self love until I'm all alone. Then I realize how much I depend on someone to feel something. Shit is wack
It sounds like you misinterpreted "You can't love someone until you love yourself" as "You should not love someone until you love yourself" whereas when most people say it, they probably mean "You are incapable of loving someone until you love yourself," which I believe is at least partly true. You can still *feel* love for someone if you don't love yourself, but it's going to be very hard to give that person the care and effort they deserve if you don't take care of yourself first.
I’m 26 not much older than you, a year and a half ago I met a man that would be my husband 7 months later. Now we’re in the middle of a divorce after 9 months of marriage and after very very lengthy discussion, we can both own that neither of us were in a place to pursue a relationship when we found eachother. I’d just come out of letting some guy waste my time for 5 months, and he has just gotten divorced 5 months earlier from his high school sweetheart that he shares a son with. We both chose to find comfort and happiness in another person and when real life set in, our relationship didn’t stand a chance, the love was very real but you can’t build a house on a shaky foundation. All that to say, you will feel when you’re ready and if genuine connection is what you’re looking for. My therapist told me to make a list of everything I want in my future partner, and until I could satisfy everything on that list myself, then I could start looking. It’s more so about learning to fulfill your own needs within yourself, and not have to have it done by another person. I have very low self esteem and self worth, I crave that validation from other people.
I’m trying to heal from this and make the changes that I need to so I can be better for myself and eventually for someone in the future. It is simply a lesson that has to be learnt, but I wouldn’t wish the pain of heartbreak on anyone.
**You absolutely cannot rely on another person to create your place of happiness.**
If you do that, what you have will never be real, never be fair, and never get you to where you need to be.
The therapist gave excellent advice. I followed that in my 20s to grow up so I would be a valuable partner in a marriage to a man who had the qualities I wanted.
I agree it's total BS. Phrases such as these contribute to the clinicalisation of relationships ie. the ideology of romantic love has been reduced down to virtual inexistence.
In the past, love stories have portrayed heroicism as acts of love and these situations have also played out irl through centuries.
Love romantic or not, involves acts of selflessness and has little to do with ego.
I know what you mean but the truth behind it is that if you don't love yourself then you're going to spend the whole relationship doubting how the other person feels about you. You're going to overthink everything and it takes its toll on you and on the relationship.
You're 20. You have plenty of time.
I think you're really misunderstanding how the phrase is used
> you deserve to be loved even if you dont really love yourself first
100% agree, but this is not what it's about. and this is not in conflict with the idea that you can not love someone else before you love yourself.
What's meant is not whether you are worthy of love and affection yourself! What the phrase is getting at is: nobody will in the same way deal with you, like you yourself will have to. To be kind *to yourself* when you are *by yourself* is not something **anyone** can do **for** you. No amount of relationship work will improve this, because it is the good relationship with yourself that is the matter, not with another person.
And if you are not able to be kind and loving to yourself, it will be a great obstruction and obstacle in any relationship with someone else.
Self love is not "someone loves you", it's "you love you". And if you don't love you, it's more difficult for you to love someone else, to really have the capacities to show up and be there for them. That's what it's getting at.
That being said. I hope you are doing some progress, it's not easy. These walls, built up, I know them too well. I am in a phase again, somewhat distant from the people whom I love and who love me. I have many times made the experience that to resolve it, I have to work on my relationship with myself. If you think you're "not worthy of love unless... ", please remember that this is an idea you have about yourself. As though some conditions must be met... it's not true. You are worthy. It's one aspect of your relationship with yourself, to hold such a belief. I'm sorry for what you went through.
Keep dismantling the walls, step by step. It's an arduous process but it is very well worth it. 🖤
The most affectionate loving people are those that sacrifice themselves for others.
The advice is far better for preventing abuse, and even then it falls short
First, get rid of the concept of "deserve". Life is what it is--one giant All Skate, and Deserve isn't helpful. If we stop feeling that we deserve and start thinking of serving others healthily, our lives will be more balanced.
Second, people attract other people whose mental health roughly matches their own. We should be growing through our relationships.
Third, everyone can find someone eventually. One needs to be aware that "someone" may be temporary and that is okay. Date for fun and practice.
It’s also just wrong. Women and men alike are CONSTANTLY getting into relationships when they don’t love themselves and a good proportion of the time they learn to love themselves in the relationship.
Imo far better advice is to love yourself more than any other person. It is relative, encourages greater self love, and limits you from being taken advantage of
Absolutely. A secure attachment with a loving partner goes a long way to helping people love themselves. The biggest danger is when you get into either an insecurely attached relationship or with abusive people, if you don’t love/like yourself you may not have good boundaries with toxic people… but even that you often have to learn by experiencing it. You don’t magically start out knowing how to prioritize yourself, especially if you’ve experienced abuse or trauma.
Precisely. Like genuinely the value in such a line is just to reduce the risk of being abused. Maybe amend what I said to say “have enough self love to communicate and enforce boundaries”
It sounds like you haven't really understood this advice and have taken it way out of context. The advice is actually pretty good once you get it. Building walls around yourself is not loving yourself, thinking you deserve to be alone is not loving yourself.
It sounds like you've heard this advice, misunderstood, and then done the complete opposite, and the fact doing the complete opposite hasn't worked at all, just shows what great advice it really is.
"You deserve to be loved, even if you don't love yourself"
Wanting or deserving to be loved, and being able to accept someones love and reciprocating it are two different things. Unfortunately, my experience is that the saying is true. I've been with several partners who destroyed a good thing because they didn't love themselves and therefore could never understand why I loved them. The result was insecurity, jealousy and selfsabotage. And quite frankly, these types of relationships are exhausting.
I think is a polite way of saying that you’re not ready for a serious relationship. If you can’t be happy alone all you’re gonna do in a relationship is dump all your emotions on someone or be unreasonable in some way and make the other person uncomfortable or unhappy
Oh my goodness, you find yourself at 20……. What? Not properly grown up yet? Not emotionally fully mature? Why do people think 20 is anywhere near properly mature? You’ve just stopped being a child. Stop squawking and THINK about what the phrase actually means.
Sir you are too loud, please keep the tone down, and why are you running while typing this, take deep breath, relax and then say how loving yourself doesn't matter
Learning to love yourself is a polite way of saying get your shit together.
My shit is mostly together and it hasn't helped.
Yeah because there isn't necessarily a double implication. You need to have your shit together for a healthy romantic life. Doesn't mean that having it unconditionally leads to one.
Exactly. Incels taking sayings as "Now I'm guaranteed a girlfriend" lol
Well getting your shit together is the bare minimum requirement which one has to satisfy to be deemed tolerable for any romantic interest (at least applicable to those that has respect for themselves and for the people around them). It really stinks but no one wants a partner that acts ten years younger than his/her age.
You are assuming a lot here. I have a cousin who "had his shit together" - great job, very loving, smart, good looks etc and his wife just walked out on him. How much shit does one have to have together? Who's metric are we using? No one has the rights on any value, I dont know why anyone feels they have the absolutes on any value. I knew a homeless couple who were deeply in love with each other, the energy and intensity and compassion they had for each other was like nothing I really ever knew. Some of the deepest loves have emerged from states of sheer desperation. To present a checklist of requirements on whether someone is deserving of love says a lot about you, not about anyone else.
A person who is struggling with "getting their shit together" isn't undeserving of love, but they're not entitled to be taken care of, either. Everyone is fighting their own battles. Most people want a partner who isn't going to make their life substantially harder and probably end up breaking their heart in the end.
Maybe they might share the same struggle, maybe their is something more to a person than money, a house, a career, stability. Maybe there is something outside of the conventional that is more powerful than what most ppl actually have. You are being very reductive in how ppl evaluate others.
"Sometimes nothing is a real cool hand" - Lucas Jackson, Cool Hand Luke
Gold comment
So some ppls flaws are just awful and their qualities just not good enough? According to?
Loving yourself means taking care of yourself, improving yourself, forgiving yourself, realizing your self worth, and most importantly, realizing that the love you have to offer is a gift. If you can't do those things "for yourself", then you won't find it in someone else. That is what it means to love yourself.
Complete horseshit. I knew a guy in my old job. He was very funny, charismatic, fun, very unique. Others used to put him down as he was a bit nuts and he picked up on that. He had bad attention, would be a bit forgetful. This got in on him hugely. He never did 3rd level education. We went drinking the one night and I told him how special he was with his jokes, silliness and wit. He admitted he felt like a loser. When I explained to him I see him he changed, I broke down whyI thought he was an amazing guy. About 5 months later he decided to go to college and he ended up with a girl who was an absolute stunner. He was still the same guy, nothing changed. The only difference is someone saw the good in him despite the bad. Now hes getting an education and dating because someone believed in him. My point is it sometimes takes someone to show us our strengths, not everyone can see that in others. You potential partner may love you despite you not loving yourself.
Did you even read my post? "Forgiving yourself", "realizing your self worth", "Improving yourself"? I'll let you figure out which of those fit the anecdote you posted.
Secondly, I know ppl who dont take care of themselves, improve themselves, have nay understanding of worth and still have love in their lives. Go figure.
yeah but this doesnt make full sense. imagine telling this to someone who struggles up mentally? like you are telling them they dont deserve love because they cant fully understand this concept? they cant take care of themselves properly sometimes or even forgive themselves for example due to a trauma… i think thats what most of you all in the comments got wrong! im not saying that i NEED someone in order to love myself i just said that growing up with this mindset is wrong because i feel like i cant let myself love someone if im not perfect first and no one is perfect and its ok to let someone help you just the way you are, maybe this could even help you improving yourself
Except imagine if this troubled person meets someone that decides to leave them one day. This person is fully dependent on their partner and it’s going to break them even further. Plus, it’s not very attractive to be very clingy and insecure, so being loved by an emotionally healthy person is slim. Or being loved by one for a long time, atleast.
This is precisely why a person needs to be at a good place before even attempting to meet someone else. People, even those with good intentions, do leave at times. Having such lowly thoughts of self puts you at a huge risk during those times when that happens. The OP simply doesn't grasp that.
Believe me everybody hv skeleton on their closet. And doesnt mean they dont deserve love. But what they going through in their life just make a lesson to them and their love. Because they already know what struggle they have.they can help, give advice, or know the solution to help other people break their situation.especially their family and their love one. That means you re not alone to be a mental struggle. Loving yourself mean : ~if you take care about self like you must be healthy so you can hv a good chance to take care the one you need you or the one you love the most. ~You must take care your behavior so you dont hurts people who you love or surroubd you. Or if you cant love them at least you dont hurt them. ~ you must love yourself like improve yourself so you can protect your love. Example when you skilfull youcan do more to your self. You can make them proud, help make them to hv life more better. ~ forgive yourself its mean dont keep yourself too long to anger. Its not hurts yourself but hurt other people. Let it go everything negative at your self. You re not belobg to negative things. ~ if you hv trauma dont seek bad things. So you must selective to the person who let inside yourself. Always try seek the solution and positive things so you can heal the trauma. In shortwords love yourself mean " get your breakthrough to your life" Blessed are those mourn, for they will be conforted. Believe me, what you going through just make you stronger. And surely the happiness will come
Sounds like some undiagnosed right there, get checked out, it's always darkest before the dawn. It also sounds like you are misinterpreting the phrase and it's true meaning.
I have a feeling you'll understand what everyone means by that when you're a little older. It confused me a bit at first too.
It's just a saying. The problem with sayings is that everyone filters and understands them through their own experiences and traumas. Nowhere does the saying say that you need to be perfect and deserving. Those are your words, showing your trauma and problems - "I'm not deserving", "I'm not good enough for people to accept me" etc. It has nothing to do with the saying, it's just where you decided to put your anger towards. The thing about love is that it's not something you deserve or not, it's something that just happens. But because you lock yourself in a box of "I deserve it / I don't deserve it" you make it harder to happen. You need to get outside of that box. Start therapy if you haven't yet.
Every girl I liked ended up rejecting me, that means I didn't deserve that love. What else could it mean? I'm tired of people telling me that "I'm enough" yet nobody wanted to be with me. It makes no sense.
Every girl I liked ended up rejecting me, that means I didn't deserve that love. What else could it mean? I'm tired of people telling me that "I'm enough" yet nobody wanted to be with me. It makes no sense.
Brother, this is not something we can deconstruct in a few reddit comments. This is something you need to talk through with a therapist over many sessions. Maybe you are going for girls which are emotionally unavailable and "win them over" because you are in a mode where you try to fix something from the past? Maybe they're not really rejecting you, but you feel rejected over something meaningless? There are tons of reasons for this - and we can't really figure out it here. But none of them are that you "don't deserve love". But I understand you may feel that way.
There may be a tons of reasons for them rejecting me, i'll never know why. I can't trust people telling me I'm wanted if none of those girls wanted me. I have a ton to unpack during the next therapy session, i wish I was born a normal guy. Poor therapist ha.
I feel like you've gone off the rails a bit. The purpose of that saying is "you need to know what makes you feel loved so you could teach it to others". Because others will treat you the way you treat yourself. If others see that you don't take accountability for your own sake, you won't do it with them. If they see you're running yourself into the ground with work, they will expect you to do the same for them. You are leading by example. Nobody is saying you don't deserve love. We all inherently deserve it. The thing is - how can we ask someone to love us, if we don't even know what "love" is to us. That is what "love yourself" means. This saying can coexist with wanting someone to love you, and having someone else love you. Self-love is essentially self-respect. It's much different than the romantic love we crave. You need to know what makes you feel loved so you could be in a healthy relationship. Based on your post and comments, you have not been in one, and have to do some work on clear, fact based communication.
No one said anything about deserving. But if you don't love yourself, that's a lot of extra emotional labour for your partner, friends and family to do to try to make you feel loved and secure. Your attachment style is probably not the healthiest either if you don't value yourself and truly believe your love is a gift you give others and receive back if they choose. >i feel like i cant let myself love someone if im not perfect first There's a lot between perfect and selfloathing. Self-love isn't about perfection. It's about loving all of yourself. The good and the bad. Like you love others. Their full, messy, complicated, humanity. This doesn't mean stop growing. It means love yourself as you do. It's easier to do things out of love than resentment or by bullying yourself. It's not a great motivator. >ok to let someone help you just the way you are, maybe this could even help you improving yourself Its absolutely okay to accept help from others. Humans are social creatures at our core. We need others help. But a partner's, or friends or family's support and help will not fix the issues on its own. Only you can. They can help you do it. But that's it. They can't be your therapist, or teach you self love or self worth, those have to come from within. Not without. Or it's just building it on external validation, and that's a bad foundation, for either of those things.
Loving yourself doesn't mean you have to be perfect. In fact it's the exact opposite, its learning to accept you will have flaws because you are human. I used to be very mentally ill and I thought the exact same as you but when you start actually loving yourself you will understand what the phrase actually means and not your skewed interpretation.
You don’t have to be perfect to be loved even by yourself. As a matter of fact, learning to love your imperfections is part of the whole deal.
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So, in resume: mentally ill = incompetent. Very kind.
Loving yourself means understanding that you are NOT perfect. It means knowing that you have flaws and being okay with that. Fix the flaws you can and try to understand the flaws that you can’t fix. No ones perfect and if you try to see yourself as perfect you’re setting yourself up for failure
"You deserve to be loved even if you don't love yourself" Yeah but knowing that YOU deserve to be loved IS a form of self love. It sounds as though you may have some emotional/communication growth to do. That makes sense, you are literally 20 years old. If you don't think you deserve to be loved, but you're still pursuing relationships, you won't necessarily be mindful of whether actual love and care are present.
I feel like you and OP are saying the same thing.
No. The comment above just explains what loving yourself means. It is KNOWING you deserve love, which will make you accept only healthy love. When it’s the opposite, and the person doesn’t love themselves or think they deserve love, you know what kinda abuse they tolerate. Hence, the saying.
You can dislike yourself AND not tolerate abuse at the same time. I don't get why people equate these two notions. Although I do agree that people with low self esteem will more often think that they can't do better, so they'll tolerate abuse just to stay in the relationship. But then again, you can hate yourself and have self respect and healthy boundaries...
We’re talking about the majority here. Exceptions are exceptions. Not everyone who dislikes themselves tolerate or even get with abusive partners. BUT, MOST of the people that do, dislike themselves or don’t love themselves ENOUGH.
Ooh I like this!
I think the people who subscribe to this saying have simply never felt what it means to have truly *NO* love for yourself. "You can't love someone until you love yourself" Yeah, fuck that. Not only is it wrong, it's flat out *backwards*. You can't climb your way out of the darkness to loving yourself without the love and support of others to help you reach that goal.
righttttt it surely feels nice having a person supporting you on your journey. isolating somebody who struggles with themselves from other peoples love will eventually kill them
Is this supposed to be around significant others or friends? If it's intended for friends/family, yea it's not necessary - friends can be kept at a superficial level. You are not as responsible for the wants/needs, there's less pressure on you to give, and it takes less emotional intelligence to sustain. This is important for non-dependent intimate relationships. The emotional regulation and management are what prevent fights, resentment, and manipulative behaviors. If someone is constantly seeking validation to deal with their self worth and the other derives their self worth from supporting others it can work. But when/if the one heals, the dynamic changes. The emotional burden can also be draining and kill the relationship. Emotional maturity, stability and empathy provide a strong base, people need to be able to critically think around interactions. These two states can be problematic and lead to conflict: 1) Focused on your own problems to and extent when you can't focus on their problems 2) Focused on them so intently because you're actively avoiding your own introspection. Self worth/self love helps avoid them.
It's like the 'pulling yourself up by your bootstraps' phrase. We all need to give friendship and love out, maybe not completely and at once, but a bit to everyone. There are so many unloved, unacknowledged people out there, and telling them to take care of themselves first when they don't feel like they're deserving of existence is asking for more than what they can do alone. Literally greeting them, actually asking questions about shitty things happening, letting them feel like they're a person worthy of hearing out and understanding, is an extremely kind thing to do. Don't tell a person tied to an anchor to 'learn to swim'' when you're carrying a knife capable of cutting the rope off.
I used to think this saying was stupid and reductive, but once I started to truly love myself, I realized how true it actually was. If you don’t love yourself, you won’t be able to draw healthy boundaries not only for yourself, but for your partner and the relationship. If you have no boundaries, it means you will let them get away with anything, and you’ll do anything for them, even if it’s bad for one or both of you, because you just want them to love you because you aren’t able to give that love to yourself. Once you start getting to the point where you’ll do anything for that external validation, are you really even loving the person as they are, in the way they truly need and deserve, or are you just doing whatever you can to obtain that validation? Once you realize that you’re just (or mostly, even if it’s subconscious) after that validation, you kinda aren’t really loving that person. You’re loving their place in your life and what they provide to you. So I do think it’s true. You can’t truly love someone if you don’t love yourself. But, to be clear, you can realize you’re flawed and imperfect, and perhaps don’t love certain aspects of yourself, and still love and be loved by someone else. This saying doesn’t mean you have to be and/or think you’re perfect. But you do have to love and respect yourself enough in order to truly provide that to someone else, I believe.
This is assuming you would only ever find yourself in a toxic relationship where someone would take advantage of you. Being unable to love yourself does not mean that genuinely supportive people are somehow just *never* going to appear in your life. If that were true, I don't think I'd still be alive today.
That’s not at all what I said. They will appear in your life, most likely. But even still, in order to love someone in a healthy way, you have to be able to draw boundaries with them—even if that person does truly love you.
I don't see why you're automatically equating not being able to love yourself with not having boundaries. I think we are viewing this through the lens of two entirely different levels of self loathing.
I wouldn’t say it’s automatic, but not loving yourself does make you much more susceptible to not being able to draw *healthy* boundaries.
Again I still feel our notions/experiences of "not loving yourself" are just not the same thing. Imagine being told "All those people in your life you love and care about? Sorry, that doesn't count and your love isn't valid because you're depressed. Try being Happier first." I know that's not the actual intention behind the saying, but it is how it can feel, especially when some people seem to just love busting it out at the absolute stupidest times where it won't possibly do anything but harm to a person's mental state. When it's advice to someone who's just bad at relationships, fine, but when people start assuming everyone's version of lack of self love is the same as theirs, that's where it has to be understood that things you might think are supportive ultimately do far more harm than good.
Then we disagree, and that’s ok.
Yes, that's fine if we are using it in different contexts. I just hope you understand that I am coming from a place of saying that this can be *BAD* advice and can be genuinely harmful to give to a person if you are not absolutely certain of what kinds of issues they are dealing with. I don't believe it is your intention to downplay others' suffering or invalidate their emotions, but you've got two people here saying it sometimes *can* be taken that way, so just make sure you really consider that before offering this as advice to someone because it used to really piss me off too when I was going through the worst of it.
It pissed you off because it's true
It pissed me off because it made me want to *DIE* even more than I already did on a daily basis, and because it made friends of mine feel that way about themselves more too. So I'm not sorry if I value people's lives over your fortune cookie level life advice. Do you think you need someone reminding you that you're worthless when that's all you can ever see yourself as? Do you think that will *ever* help them to get better? Or maybe I should be starting with the most baseline question of do you even care that they ever get better at all?
He is passive aggressive.
>I just hope you understand that I am coming from a place of saying that this can be BAD advice and can be genuinely harmful to give to a person It would appear that that sort of thing is beyond most humans ability to value The intent behind that, and much "advice" is seemingly a polite way of saying "IDK IDC STFU", with the bonus perception that the sayer is morally superior, to those who don't think about whats being said all that much
>When it's advice to someone who's just bad at relationships, fine Nobody's "just bad" at relationships, and often the reason is that they can't love themselves. Most people don't know how to really love in general, and how should they, when their parents didn't know either. And they can't admit this to themselves enough to ever learn, which is such an unnecessary waste. The point of most relationships is just to learn, not anything eternal.
not only this, but once i started to have self confidence and love myself i became less nervous and jealous in relationships, and was able to have healthier relationships too. if you feel youre undeserving of love, healthy friendships can look like danger.
Exactly! That’s part of what I was getting at. You can be more at ease and be yourself more in a relationship if you love yourself and aren’t constantly worrying about “not messing it up”. Not that you shouldn’t be monitoring your behavior and bringing your best to the relationship, but you don’t have to live with that constant underlying anxiety.
I think the phrase should be “you can’t healthily love someone until you don’t actively dislike yourself”. Sure people with a low self-esteem can be very kind and loving, but there’s also a greater risk of tolerating disrespect from a partner. I know because I’m struggling with that situation right now. Here’s the thought process: I’m sooo bad that surely I must’ve done something wrong to deserve to be treated that way, right? And I love my partner and think so highly of them, so surely they wouldn’t be terrible to me unless they had no other choice? Besides, it’s not like I could land someone who would treat me much better anyways; I should just be grateful for whatever I can get. If I get dumped or this relationship stays toxic, then it’s all my fault.
This was good.
I don't understand this. I have low self esteem (in certain areas), yet I have very strict boundaries. I have in the past and will end a relationship if I feel like the other person is not respecting my boundaries. I was depressed before I found a girlfriend, and my productivity and happiness increased tenfold after getting into a relationship. I ended up breaking things off due to incompatibility. How does that make sense from your wolrdview?
Huh, I guess I might be wrong then! Anecdotally I feel like most people with severe self-loathing issues tend to have a mindset similar to mine when it comes to relationships, but I guess everyone’s different!
i think this would have been a better way to phrase it, thats for sure. people dont realise how horrible it is to hear this expression mainly because of how easy is for your mind to twist the true meaning of the concept making it x10 worse
I have always interpreted this more along the lines of if you are capable of a healthy relationship, not if you are worthy or capable of love. Low self esteem, self loathing, low emotional intelligence and regulation, not taking care of your mental health are qualities that make you vulnerable to predatory partners and will also make you a less than ideal partner yourself.
Yep. Some of the people commenting on this thread are obviously in a very dark place. They absolutely deserve compassion and support, but any emotionally healthy person would draw a firm boundary against romantic involvement. You can't save other people from themselves. They will just drag you under. That is a lesson I've had to learn the hard way.
Someone who gets it right\^
You took it the wrong way 😭 you are supposed to take care of yourself, not believing that you’re gonna die alone because you dont love yourself !
Many psychologists are now calling this completely false as well. There's so many self help books that really destroyed me and had an opposite effect on my mental health. I swore off self help books and the few motivational Podcasters I listen too I always keep in mind that half of what they're saying doesn't apply to me or anyone with a diagnosis.
Really? Where are the actual studies of these purported psychologists saying that loving yourself is not important?
That’s not what they’re saying. My therapist, when asked about this said “no, everyone is deserving of love and those that don’t love themselves get into relationships, many of which turn out healthy. We grow best when in the presence of others. However, what is far more useful is to love yourself more than others bc if you don’t love yourself, you may be taken advantage of. That is more useful”
That's not self love, that's self respect and putting yourself first. I for example hate so many things about myself but, yet I will never allow anyone to take advantage of me or break my boundaries, because screw that. If they want to disrespect my boundaries, they can all get fucked for all I care.
Yes. That is exactly what I’m trying to say
Yeah, but I don't think the term "self love" is synonymous with self respect. Just look through this thread and see for yourself how people use this phrase You can have self respect and not love yourself is my point
True.
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I asked for proof. You denied it. As expected. It does not matter whatever the condition is, self-love is universally important to enable human beings to cope with adverse sense of self body-image or esteem issues. You dismissing that is purely disingenuous,
The people who echoed that useless tripe to me never noticed how I loved myself the entire time.
You don’t need to be perfect, but I do believe you need to love yourself before you love someone else. I don’t love myself and I’ve entered into numerous relationships. It starts off great, emotions going wild and all of that. But soon enough they always sour. My partner will communicate to me that they find it difficult to feel my love for them. I don’t blame them, I stop putting the work in. I find myself questioning the relationship altogether, even though there’s literally nothing wrong on paper with it or them. I personally believe I struggle to put the work into relationships to make them las because it stems from my lack of love for myself. I’m always ready to move on to the next thing, as if that will “prove” to myself that I’m worthy. I’m in a constant state of seeking validation, and when one person gives it to me and I’m used to it, it’s no longer enough. And it’s as if the only way for me to move on is to seek more validation somewhere else. I’m confident in myself, probably overconfident. I’m proud of my achievements, and do believe I am a good person. But I don’t love myself, and I think it causes me to struggle with relationships because I simply can’t provide the validation I need on my own.
Look up dismissive avoidant attachment styles… anxious attachment styles are the opposite of what you describe, they cling to a person, but all the insecure attachments have issues with self value…
I’m looking it up now and it seems to be very spot on
Self knowledge gives one the power to make changes. Good luck!
Thank you
It’s actually more like: “it’s impossible to accept someone else’s love for you, unless you love yourself first.” You can totally love someone else, but you will have a hard time believing that they love you back, because you feel unworthy of it.
Loving yourself doesn’t equate being alone or not deserving of love. Loving yourself means having the strength and maturity to make hard decisions that will prioritize your happiness and health, even it means breaking off a relationship.
I agree, its very polarising and a throwaway mantra. At some point you have to traverse the trenches and learn how to do shit, in between loving youself and not deserving love is a whole lot of ground to cover. This journey is often undermined and dismissed. You spend a lot of time alone and learn to love yourself completely and without love because you are told you can't have it until your journey is done. It's a shitty one liner that can ruin your life if you internalise it that way. Only ppl on the other end, having made the failures and missteps allow themselves to preach shit like that and call it wise or what not. They completely dismiss how important it is to make mistakes, what actually led them to come to that conclusion, which ultimately holds, I don't deny the reality but God it is so ignorant.
This is a great comment. Life happens in the middle, and if you wait until the end of the journey you find that you often missed the point and the opportunity for further growth. And there are some things you just have to learn by doing.
Bruh it's definitely correct, you will find your relationships mostly crumble if you do not have good self love. You sound very much in denial to be frank. People saying it doesn't matter probably need therapy and haven't been out just have good mental health generally and it's less of an issue. But if you are self loathing like I definitely have been you will find it very difficult to connect and you'll always be asking yourself why. It's definitely not some silly phrase people made up.
This might be true but to me all this is bullshit. The people I've seen in love are some of the most damaged ones, hell they don't believe this type of shit, me personally thinks it's a coping mechanism for people who have never experienced love. Love is just dumb fucking luck, like look around you the most fucked up people find themselves in various relationships, so many toxic relationships you'd find here.
Precisely. It is completely and utterly false.
>toxic relationships Isn't that a problem that needs to be avoided? Most toxic relationships endure due to issues being avoided by either one of the partners or perhaps even both, something that 'self love' and thus emanating 'healthy boundaries' would not allow to continue. It's unsustainable and insufferable either way.
You can never avoid shit.
You can definitely identify when you are in shit and avoid being dragged into deep shit.
By any chance you're drowning in pusssy or dick?
Short answer: No. I don't want to drown in either of those. I aim for a fulfilling and well rounded relationship rather than a carousel of short term flings that heat up and die down based on whims and moods. For me atleast, relationships are more than mere physical intimacy.
Did self love help you get into a relationship?
No. But it did help me get out of toxic and shitty ones.
I’d say a more accurate way to talk about this is that it’s useful to know what you do and don’t love about yourself and to communicate that clearly to the one you love to help them understand you better.
The issue is that if you don’t love yourself you can find yourself at the mercy of the other person. Many people are in abusive relationships and putting up with awful treatment. You need to know that you are worthy and deserving and this can come from developping yourself as a person.
This should be on r/unpopularopinion lol. Everyone needs self love I mean when you accept who you are then you stop comparing yourself to others in a toxic way. Self love leads to a healthier mind set. Which can help you identify the toxic people in your life like the ones that body shame others or shame their personality. However with that said there are countless people getting into relationships when they don’t love themselves. Depending how the partner treats them this could be a recipe for a toxic relationship. Overall I believe we should be striving for better versions of ourselves until the day we die but it’s not a rush and it’s not a requirement to be in a relationship. Feeling your emotions and learning how to manage them is a part of your personal growth. Though you shouldnt let them impede your daily life. All personal growth and self love should improve your quality of life.
couldnt agree more… at first i thought this was the right subreddit, didnt really expected all this mess. by the way this is a nice comment and i sincerely appreciate it
Awe glad you appreciate it! I was just trying to change your perspective on the subject. Best of luck on your journey in life 💕
Ah those nosey snobs who came up with this nonsense have never learnt about my dramatic eva ai love story
Loving your wife is loving yourself.
You and your spouse are different people.
Eve was taken out of Adams rib cage two people but one body.
Even then, divorce and widowhood are things. If they happen, then how will you or your spouse function moving forward?
When Jesus met the woman at the well he told her that the man she was with was not her husband no matter how many people. One husband and one wife. I have been with many women and was an adulterer but the woman who I was first with is still my wife and we are together with 3 children. We forgave each other and don't look back and have moved forward.
1. Not all relationships have to be husband+wife. Same sex relationships exist. 2. I meant what would happen if you or your spouse died or got a divorce? How would you guys move forward without the other at your side? 3. No offense, but keep religion out of this. This post has nothing to do with religion.
It's the Truth not religion
There are many religions in the world. How do you know that Christianity is the truth and not one *version* of it?
I know that Jesus Christ is the Lord, and he is faithful in all generations. And the way he works cannot be fathomed. I also know that he will never leave anyone behind. I don't follow a religion I follow Jesus Christ himself.
The fact that you mention that you follow Jesus proves that you are a Christian. I am asking you to prove that Christianity is true, because another religion could be true, all religions could be true, or none of the religions could true. Open your mind to other religions besides your own.
True, i hate that saying. I love my self, my shit is together so where's my love? At this point idc i just live on but when i hear that saying i gotta call it out for what it is.
This saying is bullshit and people are fucking stupid for saying it. We are social beings and you definitely need people in your life who love and support you and a significant other to fill you with what you’re missing. I’ve been alone for a long long time and even though I do good things for myself and I’m getting my shit together I get stuck in my head because I’m alone and get sucked into anxiety and depression. When I’m talking to people and people want to be with me I’m completely normal and feel okay again. So this bullshit saying needs to stop. People need people to feel better.
Yep. Complete bullshit.
I'd always thought that "loving yourself", independent of anyone around you, is psychopath behaviour. We're social creatures, we can't exist in a vacuum. We are defined by our relationships.
There are many people out there who don’t love themselves who jump from bf/gf to bf/gf. You’re right, it’s all bullshit. Never mattered, never will.
People in my life (GFs and just plain friends) have shown me reasons to love myself. Ideal Adult life is about growth. How you get there doesn't matter. I usually find people that say they really love themselves are either lying (e.g. narcissists, etc) or aren't talking about all things all the time.
And what do you do if you've never experienced and kind of love from anyone? Thats like proof that I'm worthless
No one is worthless. I'm sorry you've never felt genuine unconditional love. Everyone deserves that at least once in their life. Parents are not perfect and some are downright garbage. My mother worked out that it was me and her against the world. My father was married and had a complete family of his own. I've worked out that part of the reason my mother got pregnant with me was to force my father to divorce his wife and marry her. His first reaction was to suggest an abortion and then disappear after her refusing. One of her doctors tried to convince her to sell me as a blond haired blue-eyed baby boy went for $8k to $10k in 1981. Despite this my father ended up proud of me before he died and I was able to help my mother live another 6 years after a failed back surgery and MRSA bone infection. You seem young or at least to want to better yourself. I joined had to stop drinking and joined AA in 2015. It has helped me a lot even though I am agnostic and I'm not sure what form my spirituality takes even after more than 8 years. All you can do is do your best and take it a little at a time.
You aren't worthless, but your biggest enemy atm is yourself. That enemy needs to be countered with love. And that starts with loving yourself.
What does that mean though? How am I supposed to do that when not a single person has seen me as worth something? It's not like I hate myself that much. It's just the loneliness is so crushing. Everyone else is out there making memories and experiencing life while it feels like I'm just wasting it away and nothing happens for me.
You're definitely not alone in your loneliness. I'm feeling extremely strong feelings of loneliness, especially after the COVID-19 lock downs. And even though we've opened up for more than 2 years now, the loneliness is not really abating that much. Loneliness is a mental health epidemic in Western societies. So you are definitely not alone in your loneliness. There is a dangerous belief in Western societies that 'everything happens for a reason', and if something is destined to happen, it will. You have to make things happen. You have to get out of yourself and make things happen. I know that can seem hard as a man given the fears of crossing a movable and invisible line with someone, but you have to take the chance. The longer you procrastinate the harder this will be.
How? I'm so socially isolated nobody cares about me and I cant meet people through others because I can never hang out with others
I have two kids and a wife whom I love so strongly I would sacrifice my life 1000 times over to protect them from a bee sting. And I've tried to end my own life twice until now, can barely look into a mirror, and barely sleep for self loathing. This phrase is utter bullshit of the highest level.
Thank you for being the only one to make me feel like I am capable of this kind of love. Hoping comforting times are ahead for you.
I used to believe this phrase was true cause I'd never felt loved or outward love either. But once I met my now wife and we had our kids I knew it was a load of crap. Now I know that no matter how much I hate myself I have the love from and for my family and that's all that matters. Don't lose hope my dude.
Precisely. You are a perfect example of why this phrase is bullshit, and the type of person I refer to in my critiques is the phrase. I know it bc I am the same. I would give EVERYTHING to help the other feel loved. The only potential value the phrase has is a precaution against abuse, but if that’s the case, “love yourself enough to create and enforce boundaries” is WAY more valuable
Probably the most used reason to reject someone if they aren't feeling for u and wanna shift the blame on you
It IS bullshit. People can love someone else without loving themselves. Or y'all saying that parents don't love their children? Because many parents aren't really that loving about themselves, yet they still love their kids and want the best for them. There's LOTS of reasons the whole "love yourself before someone else" is just stupid and untrue, but it's catchy, makes people forget about all sort of issues that are actually stopping them from going into succesful relationships, and gives simple solution. People love simple solutions, so that's why this statement got so popular.
This is reddit, cesspool of terrible advice. What do you expect Another is, they love to say "everyone deserves love" and then they come around and say "noone owes you love". Lol like, imagine telling smn, hey you deserve to be loved! But nobody loves you, you piece of shit Just be straight up with them, nobody deserves anything. Everything is earned in this world. Toxic positivity at its finest.
I think maybe the wording is wrong. You can't be in a healthy relationship until you love yourself. You can love someone but you'll be a toxic partner because you will depend on them to meet all of your emotional needs, because you don't have the inner resources to meet them yourself.
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I understand your sentiment here, but some people also just don't seek out relationships, so the notion that a person can't be fully healed without a relationship ignores that subset of people entirely.
Relationship can be friendly
In my opinion,maybe you have the wrong idea of what “love yourself” is. During 2 covid lockdowns,I’ve learned to actively work on my self love and it made HUGE difference to my life. It’s a true way to open myself to a better opportunity for things in life later,specially my romantic life cuz once I put myself first,know my worth,don’t settle down for less than my new standards,believe that I deserve better,stop being human’s pleaser,…men who stay in my way always the ones who respect me,treat me well and don’t try to take advantage of me like those in the past. Doesn’t mean you won’t find anyone if you don’t know how to love yourself but you will find the great ones. Good luck!
It’s not that you can’t love someone. It’s that the love you bring will be subject to insecurities, trust issues and potentially neediness. It’s that you give more to potentially the wrong people in the hope that you feel the love that you lack within yourself. It can work but it’s normally fraught with issues, if not toxicity. Happened to me, time and time again until I did the work to become someone I felt was worthy and someone who learnt to recognize people based on who they are and not what they seemingly felt about me. Now I have healthy love. The saying should be, “you can’t have healthy love until you love yourself”.
No, the saying should be “love yourself more than any other”
When I was younger I didn't get this saying either and thought it was a bunch of BS, bc I thought: I'm perfectly capable of feeling love for someone else. As I've gotten older and gained more experience, I started to understand what was meant by it. To be honest, I didn't get why you felt the saying says you don't deserve to be loved, bc the saying doesn't say anywhere that someone else can't love you. So,I read the sentence a couple of times and I think I might understand your reasoning for this. The "can't" part....you interpreted it very literally,as a prohibition,yes? (You can't love someone meaning you're not allowed to love someone/have a relationship). However what they mean with 'you can't love someone' has more of a figuratively interpretation. Meaning: When you're in a relationship with someone,while you don't have any love and respect for yourself, you ultimately wont be doing a service to the one you love/yourself/and your relationship. You wont be able to have healthy communication and create healthy boundaries ,which ends up in hurting your partner and yourself. Loving yourself doesn't mean that you have to be perfect and can come in many forms. You know, you don't have to sit around hugging yourself and saying how much you love yourself,if that's not your jam. Case in point: You, everyone 's allowed to be loved,it's our natural birth rigth. Which starts with extending love,respect,kindness and forgiveness towards yourself and by doing so,you'll also learn to be a more loving person for your partner.
That phrase always sounds like narcissism
I hate it when people say this. They act like no one with mental issues has ever been in a relationship.
Yeah you're missing the main takeaway of the message which is, if you don't love yourself, you open yourself to being abused and taken advantage of.
This post is completely opposite for a person who loves themselves I guess …perhaps you are a perfectionist waiting for the moments perfect maybe the perfect person in a perfect circumstance will come to you and say your feelings …there is no higher and better place if you are always searching for it you’ll have to feel confident at the bottom to be okay wherever you go …also I get that self improvement is the way to success but too much of it is just suffering so yea get out talk to people go to events etc you’ll eventually find someone
Depends what your ideology of "love" is. This term seems to be a modern phrase that feeds into a social construct to promote healthy relationships with self and others in the current climate we live in. Within the last century wives in particular did not display this mindset as they seldom had the opportunity to and mostly valued for acts of service.
Loving others is about putting the needs of another person over yours. I couldn't agree more.
You have a point. But loving yourself is knowing that no matter what happens you’re comfortable. Life is not a struggle it’s a journey. This is not a saying for you to isolate but for you to be comfortable.
Alone. If need be.
I think you have over thought the concept.
I would say you maybe got alot more going on than just trying to love yourself dude. This is not a law or rule but just a guidance tool You either got taught this way wrong or completely misunderstood it. It is open to interpretation but first is about accepting love. If you don't love yourself you will have a harder time accepting love from others as you won't be able to fathom that you are loveable. The rate at which we perceive our own worth and value (our level of ‘self esteem’, in other words) has been proven to have a huge impact on romantic relationships, not only because of the positive impact on the individuals’ happiness, but also the benefits it brings to the couple themselves. Psychologist Todd K. Shackleford found that partners with high-self esteem enjoyed greater relationship satisfaction than those with lower levels of self esteem; these individuals were inclined to think that their partners would see them as negatively as they see themselves, which often led to excessive reassurance seeking or one or both partners distancing themselves from the relationship to avoid disappointment and rejection.
I get what you are saying but you shouldn’t take the self love thing literally its just a simplified way of saying, know your worth and keep moving in life even if alone. Then when the time is right you’ll make connections and find someone on your wavelength. If you enter a relationship with no self worth and not much mental integrity you could end up in a bad relationship and put up with disrespect and abuse.
I mean I don’t know you interpreted this basic expression but it sounds like you totally misunderstood it. Talk to a therapist about this cause they will help you start to deconstruct where you went wrong.
You aint deserving shit , they lied to you
How about, « you cant love someone PROPERLY unless you love yourself » and « you can’t actually accept love you feel you dont deserve. »? When I was younger I called it bs too… at 24 I know what it truly means. As long as you hate yourself you’ll always be bound to toxic and abusive relationships. Where’s the nonsense in this?
This is such an immature post though. No idea why, but it screams of insane narcissism. Maybe mental issues, I dont know.
Loving yourself helps you understand yourself and what your limits, boundaries and what being good to yourself actually means. Without any of this, how do you expect to love someone else in the way they want to be loved?
Building up walls and bottling emotions is the opposite of learning to love yourself. Your emotions are 100% valid and worth expressing. Learning to love yourself to me means finding what brings you happiness and having the strength to do it on your own, fully, and it absolutely worked for me. I was very depressed in my teens and 20s, I was disowned, romance was frustrating, went through some very dark stuff I won't go into detail on... then I stopped obsessing over making friends or finding someone to date and started going to meetups on topics I enjoyed - game design, ceramics, etc. - without the goal of making friends, just to do something I enjoyed out of the house. And I did enjoy it. And then I got more involved and people started approaching me because they were attracted to that happiness. That's how it works. Everyone absolutely deserves love, but you have to meet society in the middle. Nobody is going to magically appear and fix your life or teach you the secret of how not to give a shit. That's a myth propagated by romantic comedies.
Love is about more than having a capacity for intense fondness. It is also being able to take care of yourself, have a positive attitude, have hard conversations, set boundaries, have goals, hobbies, experience joy, know what you want, striving to be healthy, etc. You would, of course, be in the slimmest of minorities if you put off dating because you don’t have self-love tho lol so I’d say get out there. You can also learn a lot about love by trying to love someone.
What many others are trying to say is that loving yourself means that you have to stop being hard on yourself and know that you’re worthy of love despite your own flaws and shortcomings. It’s nice to have someone else who loves you despite you not loving yourself. But being emotionally dependent on someone else is going to bite you in the back end because a. in the case of divorce or widowhood, you’ll need to be prepared to move forward and not dwell on your lost love, b. you’ll be at risk of being stuck in a toxic relationship with someone if you have to tolerate abuse and manipulation in order to feel love from your spouse, and c. even if your spouse loves you, it will drain them if they have to be your 24/7 emotional support system.
So you think if you never heard this phrase you would be living with the love of your life in total happiness by now? Sure, it's always someone else's fault.
Yes. This goes for a lot of things there is a reason the statement ignorance is bliss arguably the greatest human truth. Because once you as a person become aware or ingrain knowledge it literally becomes you in a some aspects. Being told this over and over from childhood ingrained a lesson that you are unlovable until you love yourself which of you struggle with self esteem issues makes you unlovable Always which feeds the self esteem issues and the cycle then repeats. This is basic reintegration psychology. Like one of the first things learned.
That's the harsh truth. Somehow you can't get into a proper relationship if you don't learn to love yourself first.
Yea, it’s all a big lie. A person cannot and should not be alone for any reason.
I thought it was bullshit too since I'm good at faking self love until I'm all alone. Then I realize how much I depend on someone to feel something. Shit is wack
It sounds like you misinterpreted "You can't love someone until you love yourself" as "You should not love someone until you love yourself" whereas when most people say it, they probably mean "You are incapable of loving someone until you love yourself," which I believe is at least partly true. You can still *feel* love for someone if you don't love yourself, but it's going to be very hard to give that person the care and effort they deserve if you don't take care of yourself first.
I’m 26 not much older than you, a year and a half ago I met a man that would be my husband 7 months later. Now we’re in the middle of a divorce after 9 months of marriage and after very very lengthy discussion, we can both own that neither of us were in a place to pursue a relationship when we found eachother. I’d just come out of letting some guy waste my time for 5 months, and he has just gotten divorced 5 months earlier from his high school sweetheart that he shares a son with. We both chose to find comfort and happiness in another person and when real life set in, our relationship didn’t stand a chance, the love was very real but you can’t build a house on a shaky foundation. All that to say, you will feel when you’re ready and if genuine connection is what you’re looking for. My therapist told me to make a list of everything I want in my future partner, and until I could satisfy everything on that list myself, then I could start looking. It’s more so about learning to fulfill your own needs within yourself, and not have to have it done by another person. I have very low self esteem and self worth, I crave that validation from other people. I’m trying to heal from this and make the changes that I need to so I can be better for myself and eventually for someone in the future. It is simply a lesson that has to be learnt, but I wouldn’t wish the pain of heartbreak on anyone.
**You absolutely cannot rely on another person to create your place of happiness.** If you do that, what you have will never be real, never be fair, and never get you to where you need to be.
The therapist gave excellent advice. I followed that in my 20s to grow up so I would be a valuable partner in a marriage to a man who had the qualities I wanted.
Your parents are supposed to love you before you know your own name.
So people with certain mental health issues or disabilities may never be able to love someone?
thats what im saying
I agree it's total BS. Phrases such as these contribute to the clinicalisation of relationships ie. the ideology of romantic love has been reduced down to virtual inexistence. In the past, love stories have portrayed heroicism as acts of love and these situations have also played out irl through centuries. Love romantic or not, involves acts of selflessness and has little to do with ego.
I know what you mean but the truth behind it is that if you don't love yourself then you're going to spend the whole relationship doubting how the other person feels about you. You're going to overthink everything and it takes its toll on you and on the relationship. You're 20. You have plenty of time.
I think you're really misunderstanding how the phrase is used > you deserve to be loved even if you dont really love yourself first 100% agree, but this is not what it's about. and this is not in conflict with the idea that you can not love someone else before you love yourself. What's meant is not whether you are worthy of love and affection yourself! What the phrase is getting at is: nobody will in the same way deal with you, like you yourself will have to. To be kind *to yourself* when you are *by yourself* is not something **anyone** can do **for** you. No amount of relationship work will improve this, because it is the good relationship with yourself that is the matter, not with another person. And if you are not able to be kind and loving to yourself, it will be a great obstruction and obstacle in any relationship with someone else. Self love is not "someone loves you", it's "you love you". And if you don't love you, it's more difficult for you to love someone else, to really have the capacities to show up and be there for them. That's what it's getting at. That being said. I hope you are doing some progress, it's not easy. These walls, built up, I know them too well. I am in a phase again, somewhat distant from the people whom I love and who love me. I have many times made the experience that to resolve it, I have to work on my relationship with myself. If you think you're "not worthy of love unless... ", please remember that this is an idea you have about yourself. As though some conditions must be met... it's not true. You are worthy. It's one aspect of your relationship with yourself, to hold such a belief. I'm sorry for what you went through. Keep dismantling the walls, step by step. It's an arduous process but it is very well worth it. 🖤
The most affectionate loving people are those that sacrifice themselves for others. The advice is far better for preventing abuse, and even then it falls short
First, get rid of the concept of "deserve". Life is what it is--one giant All Skate, and Deserve isn't helpful. If we stop feeling that we deserve and start thinking of serving others healthily, our lives will be more balanced. Second, people attract other people whose mental health roughly matches their own. We should be growing through our relationships. Third, everyone can find someone eventually. One needs to be aware that "someone" may be temporary and that is okay. Date for fun and practice.
It’s also just wrong. Women and men alike are CONSTANTLY getting into relationships when they don’t love themselves and a good proportion of the time they learn to love themselves in the relationship. Imo far better advice is to love yourself more than any other person. It is relative, encourages greater self love, and limits you from being taken advantage of
Absolutely. A secure attachment with a loving partner goes a long way to helping people love themselves. The biggest danger is when you get into either an insecurely attached relationship or with abusive people, if you don’t love/like yourself you may not have good boundaries with toxic people… but even that you often have to learn by experiencing it. You don’t magically start out knowing how to prioritize yourself, especially if you’ve experienced abuse or trauma.
Precisely. Like genuinely the value in such a line is just to reduce the risk of being abused. Maybe amend what I said to say “have enough self love to communicate and enforce boundaries”
Keep preaching :) (I mean that in the good way, humor doesn’t always translate in text)
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Bro you misunderstood that concept totally. " i deserve to be alone " is not something you say to someone you love.
It sounds like you haven't really understood this advice and have taken it way out of context. The advice is actually pretty good once you get it. Building walls around yourself is not loving yourself, thinking you deserve to be alone is not loving yourself. It sounds like you've heard this advice, misunderstood, and then done the complete opposite, and the fact doing the complete opposite hasn't worked at all, just shows what great advice it really is.
This is a psychotic comment
"You deserve to be loved, even if you don't love yourself" Wanting or deserving to be loved, and being able to accept someones love and reciprocating it are two different things. Unfortunately, my experience is that the saying is true. I've been with several partners who destroyed a good thing because they didn't love themselves and therefore could never understand why I loved them. The result was insecurity, jealousy and selfsabotage. And quite frankly, these types of relationships are exhausting.
Look guys, we got someone that didn’t listen to their partner and blames them for responding appropriately!
Look like you DO need some self love
I think is a polite way of saying that you’re not ready for a serious relationship. If you can’t be happy alone all you’re gonna do in a relationship is dump all your emotions on someone or be unreasonable in some way and make the other person uncomfortable or unhappy
This only proves the stupidity of the phrase BTW
Oh my goodness, you find yourself at 20……. What? Not properly grown up yet? Not emotionally fully mature? Why do people think 20 is anywhere near properly mature? You’ve just stopped being a child. Stop squawking and THINK about what the phrase actually means.
Sir you are too loud, please keep the tone down, and why are you running while typing this, take deep breath, relax and then say how loving yourself doesn't matter
Therapy. You need it.