Do you have a healthy self-esteem? How does low self-worth show up in your relationships?
Have you experienced lack of intimacy, no sense of emotional stability or/and little mental support from your partner? Have you broken up with your partner on few occasions? Do you feel stuck in a relationship out of convenience? Have you ever understood why you stayed with someone who didn't treat you well?
If your RELATIONSHIP WITH YOURSELF isn’t truly happy you will do all it takes to stay in relationship with another.
And this is how it goes: you break up with your partner, you may even have an affair (due to lack of emotional connection and almost non-existent intimacy) but you end up back together. None of you truly happy, no matter how UNHEALTHY this relationship actually is because you yourself aren't entirely happy and 'healthy'. And neither is your partner...
At some point though such incompatible relationships ends.
If your relationship has ended and your whole world crumbled, if you lost the sense of who you are, know that you weren’t yourself in that relationship right from its start. Pretending to be authentic as much as they did, you were kidding yourself to know yourself and them well. Hence the question you must ask whenever such relationship comes to an end is: 'WHO ACTUALLY AM I? How much do I really know me? What do I truly desire/need to feel happy? How have I contributed to finding myself in this situation?'
When you fail to ask and immerse yourself in dating (scared that you might not find anyone as suitable as your last partner, who wasn’t suitable anyway because if s/he was you would be still together!), you will run into plenty of those who come from the exact same place: FROM LACK. From lack of knowing themselves. From an inner emptiness. From a broken heart filled with pain. From a missing part of themselves they are looking to find in YOU...
Prepare yourself though! They will be needy, requiring your attention endlessly like children, blaming you for their life not working. Don’t expect to have many adult conversations with them. Their victim will make you responsible for their drama as they will take things personally. Contradicting themselves, unclear of their own intent (why they do what they do) they will want you to explain yourself. And be sure to get them, because they don't get themselves!
How can we expect others to be there for us at times of need when they have abandoned the most important person who needs their help the most? How can someone honour our values when they don't grasp their own?
When you understood yourself on the inside (your beliefs, thought processes and emotions behind them), when you finally met the REAL YOU (by understanding who you are not) and LOVE YOU (having overcome self-rejection), you established a healthy, respectful and safe base to which you can return anytime you need to. And you might need to! The world is full of irresponsible folks who like to hide because they lost their own base...
'Who wouldn’t feel abandoned and lost when the one they love so much decides to part!?' you ask disdainfully.
If you have a healthy self-esteem, you don't feel like the world is ending, nor that you lost your IDENTITY with the departure of your partner. Because your base value is established internally without needing validation on the outside.
People with a healthy sense of worth value themselves enough to know that others are FREE TO CHOOSE to love as much they are, hence free to enter, or leave, a relationship with them.
responsibility to care for your own primary needscommunicate your desires authentically. When you allow your partner to grow within your relationship, you encourage them to recognise what serves them and what definitely doesn’t. At the same token, it is your to them. Their choices have nothing to do with your sense of who you are, i.e. feeling like A REJECT or an orphan when they decide to step outside a relationship with you. Of course you feel sad that something has come to an end. But you can clearly separate your sense of worth from their choices. Having enough self-respect you definitely won't beg others to stay with you when they clearly chose not to! And last but not least, if you are emotionally mature you are able to deal with your turbulent emotions outside the sacred space of your relationship, RESPECTING THAT WHICH IS or WAS, not weighing it down with your own unresolved drama.
A relationship ending means simply that your relationship has ended. Not that you are lost, nor that your life will be forever an unhappy one because your happiness isn't bound to the existence of a toxic or incompatible relationship!
When you heal your major insecurities, you eliminate the risk of past painful lessons coming round again by being skilled in spotting the warning signs: the same insecurities in others. Loving you, you trust yourself to start a new relationship, knowing that you can and WILL LEAVE the moment you feel that you are going against yourself by staying! It is OK and healthy to have disagreements in order to establish new boudaries. Making compromises is fine, as long as you don't compromise the love and respect for yourself. (Which would only lead to a build up of self-resentment. The same resentment would end up killing the love you have for you and your partner in time.)
There are many unhealed people hiding their lack of worth and understanding themselves behind their polished image, impressive skills, or an appealing dating profile. What sets you apart is that you trust you with protecting that which is dear to you - yourself - by protecting the love and respect you have for you. Your compassionate heart remains open even if a relationship has come to an end because every such encounter is a new lesson contributing to finding a more suitable partner. You understand that every single person has something to teach you about you. That sometimes the only way to understand what you desire is by experiencing what you don't. That nothing is lost by losing a partner who wasn’t after all compatible.
Thank you for reading. If my article contributed to understanding yourself, please be generous and share it with others.
Copyright © 2018 Michaela Patel