Interpersonal Relationships: To Have a Healthy Intimate Relationship, First Learn Self-Love and Value Yourself

Everyone wants a relationship full of love and fun.

Everyone also wants to feel loved, safe and happy. They want to live a wonderful life with others, but they can't see it themselves. Every time they feel low, they feel disappointed, silent anger and indignation, because they blame others for the reasons.

You blame others because you think they disappoint you. If they do better in the aspect of being a partner, you will feel better.

So, you try to change and fix our relationship.

But you don't know that there is something that actually has to do with yourself.

We don't focus on ourselves, we try to get what we haven't given ourselves from others: value, identity, care and love.

Many people live like this most of the time.

Many people don't know that their relationship has to do with themselves. You don't realize it, you and your relationship determine the quality of all your relationships.

So, you struggle in relationships, endure experiences you wouldn't have if you loved and valued yourself. You struggle in pain and despair, unable to meet your own needs, but you don't see that you can give yourself what you want and need. Because of this overlooking, you depend on others.

When you recover from this mutual dependence, you have many insights that pave the way for developing a genuine sense of self-value.

Therefore, let's share some insights, hoping they can help you improve your relationships so that you feel good about yourself, fall in love with life, and you can see your relationship with yourself, which directly affects your relationships with others.

Your self-value determines your relationship standards

If you don't like to love and value yourself, you won't value yourself.

The way you treat yourself, and the way you let others treat you, show how much you value yourself. So you set your own standards.

Notice that this is something you can practice in your relationships. It’s an exploration, partners can also provide feedback to help you understand how they see you treating yourself.

If you want to learn how to better treat yourself, think about how you treat the person or thing you cherish and truly appreciate. Then start with how you treat yourself, and what you accept from others, to formulate healthy standards.

If someone speaks to you in a demeaning and disrespectful way, remind yourself that this is no longer acceptable because you now protect what you cherish: yourself.

Your self-reliance affects your health.

So far, we have established what we care about and value. Therefore, your self-reliance is an expression of your belief in yourself.

If you can't take care of yourself, you give your partner a neglected yourself, which will certainly have a negative impact on the relationship.

This may also put pressure on your partner. In the long run, you may feel exhausted.

So taking care of yourself is absolutely important, not only for your benefit, but also to allow you to truly enjoy your life and love, and also for the benefit of everyone around you.

Others cannot fill the void you create.

When we neglect ourselves, we deprive ourselves of what we need: attention, care, concern, support, assurance, contact, encouragement and love.

Then we tend to offer help to others. We wrongly believe that only they can soothe our pain or heal us.

People cannot heal our pain by depriving us of our self-reliance.

Others can support us and encourage us, but they can't do it because their efforts are met with emptiness.

Sometimes, when we don't like ourselves, we don't understand why others like us. When we don't like the way we look, when someone praises us, we don't believe them, we think they're lying, or they're just being nice to us.

When we don't love ourselves, we can't accept others' love, because we don't believe in their love. It's inconsistent with our belief in ourselves, so our brain will reject it. Because of the insecurity, we become fearful.

Neglecting ourselves and expecting our partner to do everything for us is the biggest killer in intimate relationships. It makes us feel endless disappointment and unloved because the other person cannot obtain what you have internally, so they cannot meet your specific needs.

You are emotionally insecure in relationships.

All relationships need emotional security. It allows us to honestly, openly, truthfully express ourselves. We know that our partner gives us space, allowing us to simply express and respond to who we are in that moment, and make a warm response.

When we don't value ourselves, we won't respond to ourselves. We deny our feelings, want and needs. We make ourselves unimportant in our own lives. We may prioritize others' needs and often we don't even know what we want or need.

This shows that we lack emotional security in our relationship with ourselves.

When I am ignored, judged or humiliated, I tell myself that what I want is unsafe. When others tell me to step back, or when others are more important than me, I become vulnerable, open myself to others, which is unsafe for me.

The problem is, if my emotions are insecure, I can't have emotions with others, because I can’t find emotional security. If I don’t open myself to myself, of course I can’t open myself to others.

Therefore, emotional insecurity and an inability to connect deeply with others will limit our connection and experience in relationships. Intimacy requires openness and emotional connection, it cannot exist without emotional security.

“I” is the co-creator of our relationship

Our relationships aren’t random; we co-create them. We’re always in a relationship and think, ‘This is who I am and this is who I am with.’

We’re all used to finding the ‘one’, believing that one person can heal us, make everything better for us.

So, you need to learn to take care of yourself to have the relationships you want. This may seem like an impossible task, especially if you think you have to learn this before falling in love.

But we learn from experience and adjust our behavior and decisions accordingly.

It's also possible to learn how to love and enjoy yourself in a relationship and let that relationship change and improve because, after all, you co-created it.

Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for all other relationships in your life. You have the power to choose how you treat yourself. Will you continue to deprive, neglect or abuse yourself? Or will you truly change your life by changing your relationship with yourself?

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