The Sitch with Self Love
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Indy chapter.
Princesses long for their princes and Romeos long for their Juliets. But as you fall in love, youmay also fall into plenty of pitfalls. Movies and different types of media market soulmate tropesand things like love at first sight that we, as a society, fall victim to. And because we are soenamored by the prospects of a happily ever after, we forget that real life does not follow thesame script as fantasy.
I’m not saying that a fairytale romance is completely unrealistic, but those stories leave out a lotof realistic elements of relationships. We often see love for what it could be, and not what it is.It’s easy for someone to feel like chemistry is a telltale sign of true love when it’s really just abad case of attachment issues. So for whatever reason you desire a relationship, whether it be fordinner dates, shared playlists, or maybe the possibility of a forever pairing, it’s smart to retire therose-colored glasses. Looking at things through a different lens will help you see your partnerand yourself for who you really are and where you’re currently at.
The biggest and most cliche lesson I’ve learned in my romantic endeavors is just how importantit is to love yourself more than your partner. I consider myself to be an empathetic person, butlove has taught me it is both my biggest strength and my biggest weakness. After doing my fairshare of teaching (and borderline begging) boyfriends to behave and treat me right, I thoughtthose failures proved that I was unlovable. That no matter who I fell for, no partner would everbe able to catch me. Dating when you’re young is hard enough, but it took me a couple of timesto fall on my face to realize that without my own self-love to cushion me, I would keep gettinghurt.
That’s not to say that you can’t be loved by someone when you don’t love yourself. Everyonebrings baggage into a relationship, and sometimes the relationship may even bring subconsciousissues and fears to the surface. So feeling like an open wound is something you mustundoubtedly be comfortable sharing with your partner, and comfortable with feeling in yourself.Your emotions are not a burden, and you and your partner should have enough emotionalintelligence to assist one another with those hard moments and feelings. Believe it or not, ahealthy connection should help you develop your self-love skills, not drive them deep into theground.
More often than not, people seek love to supplement the love they cannot give themselves. Theywant a partner to fill that cup, but their poor self-esteem drains it faster than another person canfill it. Although that person’s heart is damaged, and they deserve some grace, they’reunknowingly contributing to the beginning of an unhealthy dynamic. They are creating puddlesfor their partner to slip on, and feeling surprised when they fall. Self-love and self-awareness gohand in hand. So while self-awareness would help a person realize the mess their baggage ismaking, self-love would help them carry it in a manner that doesn’t fault their partner. Whetheryou are a half-full or half-empty person, there should at least be some water in that cup beforeyou find someone to fill it.
When it comes to relationships that are toxic due to the other person’s problems, active pursuitsof self-love serve as both a sword and a shield. You can protect yourself from harm, and cutthrough any BS thrown at you. In other words, you won’t tolerate behavior and dynamics that drain you. It’s one thing to care about a person and offer forgiveness when they make mistakes,but it’s another to keep excusing the same mistake over and over. It’s one thing to set a boundary,but it’s another to falter when confronting the one who crossed it. Most importantly, yourself-love can help you recognize when you are truly at fault, or when your partner is framing youfor the results of their insecurities. Your self-love helps you stay afloat when someone else’sself-esteem sinks them. While you may want to do everything in your power to save both of you,we’ve all seen Titanic. Sometimes, the person you want is not meant to float with you (RIPJack).
Time in and out, I had let the end of my relationships tell me the type of person I was. I wasn’tconfident in my character, so I let them confirm negative beliefs about myself. But recently, Irealized that although these people knew me, they didn’t see me. They let me take the blame forthe way their insecurities operated, they let me overcommunicate to ears that weren’t listening,and they let me feel like I had to keep giving to get back a bare minimum level of affection. Ifanything, these relationships taught me that where I’m at in my journey is far beyond first base.When I’m on third base, they expect me to run back to first and carry them to home plate. Andwe all know baseball does not work like that. To score, you can’t go backward. You must goforward.
So that’s what I did. Despite leaving them behind, and despite the pain, guilt, and fears thatfollowed me, it was always the right choice. It was a win that felt like a loss. I bent the rules forthem, struck myself out, and did everything in my power to help them. I played multiple roundsof this hypothetical baseball game with my fair share of partners until I realized what the truth was. It wasn’t that I was giving enough, it was that I was giving too much. I wasover-functioning in my relationships so my partners wouldn’t let me down or hurt me. Then,when they did mess up, they weren’t held accountable. As a mother would try to prevent hertoddler from sticking their fingers in outlets and swallowing small objects, I wasdisaster-proofing my relationships and then letting my partners loose with the hope theywouldn’t break anything. I was coddling my partners like they were little boys, and giving thema safe space to let me down. Because of the lack of maturity of those partners, this dynamicworked for them just fine. But it never did for me, because the moment it was my turn to respondto their mistakes or mistreatment, I was forced to comfort them and resume the role of thecaretaker.
While the effort I was putting into the relationship was for my partners, the benefit of that workwas primarily for myself. Because I was afraid of being hurt and mistreated, my fault wasperpetuating a dynamic I thought would prevent it, when all it did was breed it. I was working afull-time job to maintain these relationships, doing things like always planning dates orcommunicating at an elementary level that was easy for them to understand. I let my partnersassume a more relaxed role and reap the benefits of my labor. What I didn’t realize was that had Iloved myself more, I wouldn’t have tolerated half of what I did. Instead, I would’ve let ‘boys beboys’ and found a healthier connection that would’ve helped me grow in the direction I wantedto go.
While you may dream of being swept off your feet, a good first step to finding that fairytaleending is focusing on yourself. While that advice is once again cheesy and probably repetitive, investing in your personal growth is an effort that will never go to waste. Loving yourself is askill, and as you would train for a sport or study for a test, you must consistently practice it. Youdon’t want to lose your spark trying to light someone else’s match. Rather, you and your partnershould feed off each other’s flame. You don’t have to tolerate things just because you lovesomebody. You don’t have to apologize for problems you didn’t start. And you don’t have tooverwork to make up for somebody’s lack of effort. Respect and love yourself as if your cup wasfull, and someday, the right prince (or princess) will come.
<p>The post The Sitch with Self Love first appeared on Her Campus.</p>
Welcome to Billionaire Club Co LLC, your gateway to a brand-new social media experience! Sign up today and dive into over 10,000 fresh daily articles and videos curated just for your enjoyment. Enjoy the ad free experience, unlimited content interactions, and get that coveted blue check verification—all for just $1 a month!
Account Frozen
Your account is frozen. You can still view content but cannot interact with it.
Please go to your settings to update your account status.
Open Profile Settings