Self-Love: The Best Foundation of Happy Relationships

Ever wondered why so many relationships fall apart? This is the reason you may have not thought about.

When you type " Why do relationships fall apart?” into Google, the main results are: Lack of communication, trust issues, unresolved conflicts, financial difficulties, and …

A lot of people don’t fall into these categories. They do more research: narcissism, compatibility, lack of respect, lack of time, long distance. Still can’t seem to fall into them.

An overlooked reason would be: lack of self-love. The healthy one, not selfishness or narcissism.

Diving into it

It’s often said “Love yourself”. What even is self-love?

PsychCentral puts it this way - Balanced self-love is a commitment to your personal happiness and well-being through self-compassion, acceptance, and kindness.

Learning to accept yourself, have compassion and patience with yourself. Setting boundaries and not tolerating disrespect.

It’s really easy to get lost in relationships, whether it’s romantic, a friend or work related, people-pleasing may put its foot in. The need for validation, going over your head to please people, hoping that they’ll make you feel appreciated. And when they don’t? Everything starts crumbling down. You start doing even more, validation doesn’t come in, put in twice the work, still no validation, what now? A breakthrough. Even if you don’t realise, something deep down feels that you’re not appreciated and it breaks through.

Why it’s important

When we place our self-worth in someone else’s hands, we end up falling into the trap of seeking external validation from others.

It’s important to embrace our needs and feelings, not suppress emotions in order to avoid conflict.

We choose to hurt ourselves, just so others don’t get hurt. What we don’t think about is, maybe the other person is waiting for just that, for you to say the word. Your partner can’t change if they do not know what is up. Let them see, think and change. Choose yourself over anybody else.

Research shows that your mental health affects your physical well-being, so why would you want to ruin both of them?

How to love yourself

Another thing people don’t tell you after the phrase “Love yourself”, is how to.

It’s definitely a journey, a thing you need to do consistently, not something you can learn once and put into your “accomplished” pile.

Here are some areas you could put your practice into:

• Recognising your emotions - pay attention to how you are feeling rather than turning them down. Stop putting others’ feelings over yours. If it’s hard to realise why you’re feeling a certain way, journaling would be the tool I’d recommend to use. Feeling a bit anxious and no idea why? Write it down. Moments of the day that could’ve caused this reaction, after some time, go through your notes and connect the dots. Later on in life, you’ll be able to recognise the cause of something without writing it down, that’ll be the breaking point of knowing and understanding yourself.

• Set boundaries - Treat yourself as you would anyone else. Instead of criticising the moment when you mess up, try to understand that we all make mistakes. Instead of punishing yourself because of them, learn and fix your mistakes. Setting boundaries is a key aspect of self-respect. If something or someone drains or disrespects your set boundaries, learn to say "no" or distance yourself without feeling guilty. Respect your own needs.

Still going

• Alone time - find something you love. Whether it’s listening to music, reading books, surfing, cooking or baking. Something that lights up a spark in you. Don’t be scared to go on dates with yourself. Go see a movie, buy popcorn- ALONE. There’s nothing to be ashamed about. If it makes you happy and fulfils your life, do it. Maybe every Sunday you’ll designate just to yourself, with bubble baths, candles and relaxing music or a show you adore.

• Self-acceptance - don’t wait for someone to give you a compliment, do it yourself. Walk up to a mirror and say out loud what you love about yourself. Accept that no one is perfect, learn to fall in love with your flaws too. When you catch yourself thinking negatively, turn your thoughts around, find something positive. Remember that you don’t always have to be productive, it’s okay to rest too.

It’s a hard process. But once you start and see results, the dopamine will definitely be raised and you won’t be able to stop.

Let’s summarise

Self-love is a crucial thing for healthy relationships. It’s easy to forget yourself and give it all to the other person. Knowing how to stop, take care and accept is important.

I’m not suggesting that you disrespect, suppress your love and mistreat your partner. No, it’s important to balance self-love and romantic love.

Before learning to love anyone else, start by loving yourself.

“Life is too short to waste any amount of time on wondering what other people think about you. In the first place, if they had better things going on in their lives, they wouldn't have the time to sit around and talk about you. What's important to me is not others' opinions of me, but what's important to me is my opinion of myself.”

“The person in life that you will always be with the most, is yourself. Because even when you are with others, you are still with yourself, too! When you wake up in the morning, you are with yourself, laying in bed at night you are with yourself, walking down the street in the sunlight you are with yourself.What kind of person do you want to walk down the street with? What kind of person do you want to wake up in the morning with? What kind of person do you want to see at the end of the day before you fall asleep? Because that person is yourself, and it's your responsibility to be that person you want to be with. I know I want to spend my life with a person who knows how to let things go, who's not full of hate, who's able to smile and be carefree. So that's who I have to be.” - C. JoyBell C.