I guess you could say I’ve been rather unlucky in love so far. So you could also say I’m in no place to write advice on relationships. However, even though I definitely don’t know how to do everything right, I do know some places where I’ve certainly gone wrong and sabotaged a good thing. Here are some reasons why low self-esteem destroys love and relationships.
Low Self-Esteem Makes You Seek External Happiness and Validation
One of the biggest issues with having low self-esteem is that you are never really happy with yourself. As they say, you need to love yourself before you can love someone else. In my only relationship that really mattered to me, it was very apparent that I was not happy with myself and with where I was in life. I felt unsuccessful for my age and wasn’t where I wanted to be financially or career wise. I felt lonely and sad that I didn’t really have any friends and was on a seemingly never ending seesaw of anxiety and depression.
Early on when I’d share these negative thoughts with my boyfriend they were met with shock and sadness. He’d go on and on about how great I was and that I was crazy for thinking the way I did about myself. It felt nice to hear, but in reality it didn’t really help. Because of my low self-esteem, it felt like false words. And after a while it was clear that this got old for him as well. No one likes telling someone the same thing over and over. You truly need to feel peace with yourself to bring anything to a relationship with another person.
You Don’t Feel Worthy of Your Partner
I couldn’t believe that I had found such a wonderful guy. Not only found him, but he was interested in me! He was tall, attractive, funny, charming – and young (there was a bit of an age gap). I felt ugly, overly tall like a Sasquatch, shy and uninteresting, – and old. It felt like I was doing a performance, and at any moment he would awaken and realize that he was with this ogre.
My defenses were always up. I had ‘Great Wall of China’ walls. I took much longer to say “I love you” because I just knew when he would soon turn around and inevitably break my heart, well at least I hadn’t been too vulnerable and shown my hand. If he had an off day and was in a funk I’d immediately think it was about me. He had finally realized I’m a troll and was about to dump me. I’d try to be comforting at first, but if there wasn’t an immediate switch in his attitude towards me I’d become defensive and standoffish. If you’re about to hurt me, I won’t be caught dead acting as if I care. I will hurt you before you hurt me. Needless to say, this is not a productive way to have any relationship.
Low Self-Esteem Leads to Trust Issues
Along a similar vein, when you have low self-esteem and don’t feel worthy of your partner, you are way more likely to be suspicious of their behavior. To this day, I don’t really know if my boyfriend was cheating or not, but there weren’t really any red flags that he was. But I never felt good enough. I thought I wasn’t pretty enough, not sexy enough, not feminine enough. I couldn’t ever really believe that another person would be satisfied with just me. And over time the suspicions and accusations did not go over well. In the early days it would be met with reassurance and even laughter about how “silly” I was being. It grew to anger, resentment, and hurt over unfair accusations.
In the end, as you may suspect, this relationship came to a close. But although it devastated me, I can see the good in it all now. It has sent me on a path of self discovery. I’ve since grown a lot. I’m happy now. I’ve developed spiritually and have really grown to love myself as a person. I feel I am worthy of anyone now, that no one is “better” than anyone else. Just different, compatible and incompatible. I believe the Universe sometimes needs to make an impact with a really heartbreaking relationship so you learn your lessons for the one you are truly meant to end up in.