I want to take a break a bit from the marriage conversation, but only in the sense that we develop relationships before we marry. Those relationships can be short-term or long-term and not always will they result in marriage. It’s a sad fact in our society, that many of us spend a long time looking for love and as the song says, looking in all the wrong places.
Why Do We Hook Up With the Wrong People?
The most likely answer to this question is a case of poor self-esteem. I’ve seen it happen time and again with people that I care about. They are desperate for the exterior approval and acceptance they cannot find within themselves. They’ll find a man or a woman that they like and they will literally alter everything about their life and lifestyle in order to meet that person’s approval in the hopes that they will be loved and accepted.
If you can see the double-edged sword lurking in there, then you are seeing how problematic the situation can be. I’ve seen women drop their friends, change their work schedules and even alter the type of classes or career goals they have all in the name of trying to get the guy they like to shore them up by liking and falling in love with them.
You Need To Love Yourself
For any relationship, long or short-term to work, you need to love yourself. It may sound trite, but how can you expect someone else to care for you when you think so little of yourself. Case in point, a very close friend of mine was actively pursued and then dated a guy who really liked her for the smart, sassy woman she was. But she did a lot of things he didn’t like.
Eventually, she began to remake herself so that she would eliminate all the things he disliked and become more of what it was he said he did. It ended badly when it became rapidly apparent that she’d cut herself off from the person she was to become someone she wasn’t. He really didn’t like what she transformed herself into and her own lack of self-esteem was reinforced by the failure.
What Do you Do
If this situation describes you, there are things you can do to help yourself. First and foremost, spend the time on you that you deserve. Get to know what you like and dislike about yourself – and don’t base it on other people’s opinions. Take yourself out to dinners, spend the time pampering yourself, get fit and get healthy and learn what it is that makes you, you.
Learn to enjoy life for yourself and based on your own personal ideas of what makes you happy. When you are happy and confident in yourself, your self-esteem will run high and the people who want to know you and who will enjoy you for you will surprise you.
Have you ever coped with this type of problem?
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Marriage Tips: Tides of Feeling