What does it take to really love yourself?

[90802]

Hmm, I couldn't think of an appropriate thread title, so maybe one will come to me while typing this post

I got a lot out of The Feeling Good Handbook by Dr. David Burns, and stumbled across an earlier book he had written about love and romance called Intimate Connections.

Romantic relationships have been a big problem for me my entire adult life (mainly because I haven' had nearly enough of them ), and it's a part of life I'd like to get fixed, ASAP.

However, Burns suggest holding off on intimate relationships until you love yourself. Being that I'm prone to All-or-Nothing thinking (for example...if I'm not 100% satisfied with my life I can't be in a romantic relationship), I think I may be looking at this the wrong way.

Now, I definitely need to get better at loving and accepting myself. No doubt about it. However, I don't know if I'll ever get to the point where I'm completely, 100"% satisfied with my life (does that ever happen to anyone?).

Or maybe it's not so much about loving yourself completely, but not expecting another person to come rescue me and make my life better. I definitely don't expect that.

Hmmm, this is a whole lotta rambling without really saying anything! I'd like to be clearer, but I'm afraid I'll spend an hour or two trying to make it perfect

Your thoughts? Experiences?

[Angela]

Being in relationships in which I wasn't loving myself very much made available learnings for me that led to my having the resources to do so. So I wouldn't suggest holding off on intimate relationship until you love yourself, unless you have some serious issues that interfere with your functioning (like, if you are severely depressed, self-harming, or have episodes of uncontrollable anger or violence).

If you're basically ok, though, intimate relationships are a great way to grow -- including developing self-love.

That said, though, I think that when you've got an abundance of self-love, you're much more likely to make choices that will have you in a relationship that works really well, easily, and effortlessly.

[RonSouther]

There's no need to avoid romantic relationships until you can love yourself. Instead, the person you're dating can be a mirror of your immaturities to you if you allow it.

The problem is that when you don't love yourself, that mirror will sound like an attack on your self image. You won't tolerate someone that doesn't seem to accept you as you are. At the same time, you're not realizing that your immaturities are hurting your partner. You can't accept that you're hurting the other because then your self image takes a hit. No, it will always be the other's fault in order to protect your ability to like your image.

If your self esteem is dependent on others to only show you the nice stuff about you and not the not so nice, then the relating will die as the other person gets tired of being on pins and needles about whether what needs to be said will be welcomed or rejected. That will usually lead to silence on troubling issues and the relating will be superficial.

You need the mirror, however, you won't be able to welcome it until you do love yourself, until you don't need the other to say only nice things to you.

So what is really needed is that you are in a relating where the harmony runs so deep that your partner can vent on you and you can't run away because the attraction is too strong. If it's not strong enough, then you won't tolerate the "verbal abuse" and you will leave.

How to find such a deep natural match? THAT is really the only problem in relatings....how to find your soulmate....Without that depth, I don't see two people can stay together for very long and unfortunately, I see that most couples have kids before they realize that they simply don't belong together, but then it's too late, the entanglements are too many.