Do you have to love yourself, before you can TRULY love someone else?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspiered by the marriage difficulty thread in this forum, I wanted to ask this. One thing my wife and I agreed on before we got married was that we had to love ourselves and who we are personally before we could say we were truly in love with each other. Smartly, we had both had several long relationships before we met, we had been the dumpor and the dumpee, we knew what we liked to do, we knew what we wanted and we were quite literally perfectly matched when we met. I’ve gained 20 pounds in 6 years but I can shed that silly stuff.

Seriously now, Love. Do you love yourself enough to say “I LOVE YOU” to your SO? Is it a necessity to love yourself first? A good thing?

I think it’s a very good thing to love yourself. Wether or not you need to to fully understand how to love another is up to debate?

2

Well, if you ask me, it’s a compliment to the other person (the “love-ee”, as it were) when you love yourself. When you love yourself, saying “I love you” to another person essentially means, “I’m offering something to you that I happen to think is quality goods, hence I think you deserve quality goods.”

To say “I love you” to another person if you DON’T love yourself means, “Well, here I am–I ain’t worth shit, but what the hell, I’m yours.”

I’m oversimplifying of course (and FTR, I don’t actually think of myself, or anyone else, as “goods”), and there are of course a lot of other issues that can result from lack of self-love in a relationship, but that’s my nutshell.

3

I think that a part of love is finding a person that allows you TO love yourself. Sometimes an emptiness exists, or an insecurity that makes one look upon oneself in a less than holy light. The loathing, hatred or disrepect of a persons own self can cause the lack of love. In a good relationship, I would guess that the other person loving you causes you to look at those blemishes in another light. Sort of “If she loves me regardless of my faults, then why can’t I?”

4

I agree and I agree. However, Epi, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would find someone who was going to meet all of her own criteria as well as my own. I was single for a full year before I met her. It was well worth the celebacy because I found the perfect woman. A woman who stimulated my every nerve. And a woman who I know will continue to do so for evermore.

5

I’m happy for you man. I secretly hope that someday I will meet a girl that makes me feel that way. I am a bit of an old cynic though, and really feel that it will never happen. My celebacy has lasted nearly 9 years, and have been single for nearly 5 of those. The possiblity of love seems a far fetched dream, sort of like winning the powerball or something. It is best if I consider it a lost cause and avoid heartache. Single forever is my motto. I should change my user name to Eternal Monk or some such. :wink:

6

I think lots of people aren’t that much in love with themselves are they love others. If they are, it’s not healthy, it’s just being smug, which is not nice.

7

**René ** thats a bit of a braod generalization now isn’t it. And verging on very pessimistic. I am not a smug man, however I do think about what I say - usually - and what I do. I like myself, and my wife knows it and she would describe me as a confident person. Certainly not smug.

8

I don’t think that’s what the OP is thinking in terms of love, Descartes…

The last person I would want to be with is a narcissistic schmuck but I do appreciate when people are comfortable and confident in who they are.

I didn’t even like myself very much until I met my husband. He helped me through a very difficult time in my life and through him I learned what love (for anyone) really is. If I had to figure that out on my own I would still be a lonely girl. So I don’t think it is a prerequisite for a relationship as when we started I didn’t love myself but we’ve done very well together since then.

9

If you don’t like yourself, it’s not fair to expect someone else to.

10

I agree with Tanookie. I was in a similar way before I started dating my boyfriend several years ago. Thanks to my ex, I left that relationship pretty much thinking I wasn’t even good enough to be considered human, let alone a “woman”.

My boyfriend’s gentle acceptance and love allowed me to relearn to like and love myself.

Plus one needs to consider that even if a person IS in a bad way regarding their self-esteem, not all of us are going around mooning, and pining away and letting others KNOW those thoughts.

Generally we can still give love to others even if we haven’t yet learned to love ourselves.

Descartes??? I read this:

“I think lots of people aren’t that much in love with themselves are they love others”

Several times, I know it’s just a typo and that you meant to type something else in place of “with themselves are they love others” but for the LIFE of me I can’t figure it out.

I’m of the “curiosity killed the cat” variety, could you please put me out of my misery and tell me what it was that you meant to put there"??? (sheepish smile)

11

I can answer this one from experience. It is absolutely NOT necessary to love yourself to truly love another. I love a lot of people… truly. I would cheerfully lay down my life . I have a great deal of respect for Auntie Em, but must disagree here. The offerring is not ones-self… but love itself. I think my love for another has value… whether or not I think I myself have a great deal of value doesn’t enter the equation. And soulmurk is exactly right. It isn’t fair to expect people to like me when I don’t like me… and I don’t expect them to. But for some reason they do. and that’s nice

12

Verbenabeast, you make a good point, and I’ll fully admit that I’m carrying a little baggage here, leftover from dating some people who didn’t have the best self-esteem. In a(nother) nutshell, their failure to value themselves put the burden on me of constantly having to convince them that they were smart/attractive/desirable, etc.

Granted, everyone loves a compliment, but the behavior of a couple of people in particular left me thinking (and pardon me if this sounds horribly snotty–I don’t mean it that way), “Why would you offer yourself to me if you don’t feel like you’re the prize hog?”

And actually, I think that the offering of one’s love is an offering of oneself. Not to be all maudlin, but even though you’re not literally giving someone your heart, I think it’s an apt analogy especially if, as you say, you’re willing to lay down your life for those you love. That, if you ask me, really IS giving up your whole self to someone.

Oh, and FWIW, I saw your picture (in that picture thread in MPSIMS), and I think you look like a wonderful person, someone who’d be really great to know. (OK, admittedly I too was expecting you to be a woman, but the point is that you just have that look about you of someone who is a lot of fun.)

13

Yay, I love these types of threads. :slight_smile:

The word “love” has many meanings. And since you’re using them both syonymously (i.e. loving myself and loving my SO), IMO, I think there is a distinction between the two.

Loving myself, is more of a self acceptance and being able to be happy with myself, or comfortable with my strengths in addition to forgiving myself for my shortcomings. I think that is the launching point in being able to love someone else. Psychologically, how can I allow myself to place those same feelings on someone else if I can’t do it for myself first, the one I have the most leniency for?

Loving my SO,while incorporating the same feelings as I have for myself, also involves, as Noah puts it, “A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.” As much as I like myself, and think I’m a pretty okay dude, I can’t say as I have deep, tender and inutterable feelings of affection for myself. :wink:

I’ll reply based on the most common definition of love: I think to say you have to love yourself before you can love someone else would not be totally accurate. Self acceptance however, I believe is a requisite.

If I loved myself the same way I loved my wife, I would be rather self absorbed and wrapped up in myself, because I am absorbed and wrapped up with her. The love I have for myself, if you want to call it love

If I see myself as a valuable person and am able to be happy with the way I am, I think one is capable of truly loving someone else.

I’m not nitpicking either, I think that to love oneself

14

It is hard for someone else to like you if you don’t like yourself.

15

Oh brother!!! I posted totally accidentally with some sort of bizarre keystroke combo… terribly sorry about that!!! I had a bunch of thoughts that I was putting together but was totally unfinished. It’s gonna sound very jumbled I’m sure :frowning:

How embarrassing…:o :o :o :o

You could roast marshmallows off of my face right now. Bad me. Bad bad bad me.

16

“It is hard for someone else to like you if you don’t like yourself.”

Not really. Some people love to rescue others from themselves.

Ask a hundred dopers what ‘love’ is, get a hundred answers… I think the topic is more about if you can treat others only as well as you can treat yourself.

Also, what if you marry someone who ‘loves’ themself, but doesn’t know who they are yet & after you marry them they find out who they are, then it’s too late to change who you married…

17

Having screwed up enough relationships to support a daily soap for several months I thought I could add my 2 cents worth.

The basic problem as I see it is as follows

  1. I don’t “love” myself
  2. if don’t love myself then I must not be loveable - I know myself best
  3. I think I love my SO
  4. My SO says s/he loves me
  5. s/he is obviously mistaken, lying or deluded because I am not loveable
  6. My SO doesn’t really love me
  7. therefor I am not loveable
  8. how can I love myself if I am not loveable
  9. return to 1 and repeat

I’ve been on both ends of this sort of relationship - it’s no fun for anybody

pony

18

I think before you can TRULY love someone else, you have to KNOW yourself, but not necessarily love yourself.

I think before you can have true friendships & relationships, you have to be self-aware - acknowledge your strengths as well as your faults.

I believe once we’re truly self-aware, we can like and respect ourselves, even if we’re not at the “Loving” ourself stage just yet.

19

I think you can love someone else without loving yourself–but I think it’s not likely the kind of love that will make you happy, and it’s probably not very conducive to a healthy relationship.

As an example, a former boyfriend of mine had very little self respect. I have to say, I do believe he loved me. However, the relationship quickly became one of him demanding"love me, love me, please love me so I can feel good about myself."

In the end, I just couldn’t handle being so responsible for someone else’s entire feeling of self worth. And I doubt that he felt very happy in the relationship either since I could never reassure him enough.

Admittedly, my example is a bit extreme. But I do think it’s very hard to be in a happy, fulfilling relationship of love when you don’t at least like or respect yourself. It’s all too easy to let your insecurity take over.

20

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this topic, but I don’t know if I can express them with any kind of clarity. I’m going to try, but please cut me some slack and ASK me what I meant before you decide I am a total schmuck, 'kay? I’d appreciate that a great deal.

Of COURSE you don’t have to love yourself before you truly love someone else.

You can hate yourself and truly love another person. You can hate yourself and find someone who loves you the way you are…and be so grateful to them for loving YOU that you love them truly just because THEY LOVE YOU. That can also make you despise them for loving you, at the same time that you truly love them. That’s a pretty hard thing for the person who loves you. And it happens more than any of us would like to see.

You can feel that as much as you don’t like yourself, if you could only have this certain person LOVE you, THEY would make you complete. So, if they deign to fall in love with you, you are so grateful. AND…you love them truly. Because…no one else ever WILL. You think. Eventually, this will come back to bite you, I think.

You can have experiences that condition you to feel that love=abuse…so you subconsciously find someone who will fulfil this “qualification” and abuse you. You CAN truly LOVE this abuser, and feel that "if I could just A) Be a better housekeeper or B) Be more intelligent or C) Be better in bed or D) Lose 20 pounds or E) Be or do (a thousand other things)…then all would be well. Because you TRULY LOVE THEM, so it must be your fault they don’t love you the way you THINK you want to be loved.

It could be you need to be a rescuer. So you find someone who NEEDS a rescuer, and you TRULY LOVE them. And then you are able to help them, and might spend the rest of your life helping them. And sometimes this works out for both people and you end up (both of you) happy. But…sometimes this can also come back to bite you. And often does.

Obsession is a kind of “true love”…to the person who feels it.

Co-dependency is a kind of “true love”…to the people who are involved.

Rabid jealousy is “evidence of true love”…to some people.

What I am trying to say is that love, although a wonderful and truly magical thing, is not always healthy. Sometimes it is downright UNhealthy, and the healthier you are in your mind and heart, the more able you are to find the healthy kind of love.

I would never want to be “in love” with someone who was so in love with himself that all I was…was a reflection of HIM. I believe that they call this a “Narcissism Complex”, but I am not sure.

I would never want to be “in love” with someone who needed me so badly that it didn’t matter to him WHAT I did to him or the relationship…he would love me anyway. What kind of person would accept unacceptable treatment …just because he “truly loved” me? It would be hard to respect someone who would allow this to happen.

Well, I am just going to (totally out of charcter)bare my heart here.

I can hear you protesting that none of these situations involve “true love”…but I don’t agree. We all bring to relationships all the patterns, hurts, anger, history and needs that are formed in our childhood/mind/heart/character/personality/the person we were BORN. True love is not one thing. It is many things, and some of them are BAD.

An emotionally healthy person is able to process all of these things, and find a person to love who celebrates their strengths, encourages growth and healing in respect to their weaknesses… and continues to love them TRULY throughout the process. These couples are committed to encouraging each other to be better than they are…and they are walking that road together…with each other’s help and encouragement. I actually KNOW a few couples like this, and sometimes I am awed by the realization that I have been allowed to be a part of their lives. Their love fills my life with sunshine and rainbows. I treasure them, and I treasure the fact that if THEY can have it, it might be possible for the rest of us.
But let’s face it…I don’t know very many people who are completely emotionally healthy.

Still, a LOT of people are blest. They “accidentally” find someone who truly loves them and by their very being encourages healing and growth. I think these people are given a gift. (From God, IMHO, but I know many of you may not agree…and that’s okay.) This category also includes the people who are self-aware enough, or lucky enough, to find a life partner who “fills in the missing parts” for them. Most of the happy long-term couples I know fit into this category. My parents had this kind of love. I know that I am the person I am because I had this kind of a bedrock of love to live my life upon. My parents were very different people…and if you were to look at their life, you would see that they had different strengths but meshed their strengths into a whole separate “person”…there was Margaret, there was Roy, and there was a couple. All three of these things remained strong.

Some people never move forward much, but they are lucky enough to find someone who truly loves them the way they are and they never STOP loving them…even if growth and change do not occur. Sometimes a “rescuer” truly loves a “victim” and they never care to grow…and both are happy.
Some people spend their lives in misery because they never move through the demons they learned as a child. My heart hurts for these people, and I pray they start to think about their life. Are they happy? If not, WHY not? Is their “backstory” coloring life? Are you unhappy because you don’t know how to be anything BUT unhappy? Does it frighten you to think about being alone?

I don’t know the answer here, obviously, but I DO know that “true love” is different things to different people. And if you are happy with your partner, you have found it for YOU. Hopefully your partner feels the same way.

So…DO you need to LOVE yourself in order to LOVE another? I don’t think so. I think that a healthy dose of common sense, a realization that you DON’T love yourself and a realization that you need to WORK on that…these are things that will facilitate your future happiness. Because although I think it is possible to love someone without loving yourself, I ALSO think that living a life based on someone else’s value of your worth is not conducive to happiness. A person should not base their value of themself on other people’s values. Love is NOT an emotion for the eilite. The “elite” do what they will. The rest of us attempt to be happy.

So, Scotti exits the forum…trailing A) No good advice…B) No good flak jacket

Scotti, donning flak jacket

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