If you can't have anyone love you until you love yourself....

Forgottendanfan · Jun 23, 2022

Then why are there so many people with depression, drug addictions, severe mental health problems etc. in relationships? Are these relationships null and void? I guess they all must be. There is no other explanation, because most of these people don't appear to love themselves. Maybe they do and that makes all the difference.

Or maybe all the people who don't love themselves are 34 year old kissless virgins like me and it's all an illusion.

TheRealCallie · Jun 23, 2022

Are you sure there is love involved in those relationships?
Are those relationships actually relationships or are they just pretending to be (maybe even to themselves)

I was married and looking at it now, I wouldn't consider it a relationship after the first year or two of marriage. We were roommates who occasionally had sex. But I can tell you that we played it up when we were in public together. Appearances can be deceiving, so don't assume that just because there is a "relationship," it's actually something good, because it's not always.

I'm not saying that's true in every case, but what I can tell you is that being in a relationship with someone who has bad mental health can and often does ruin that relationship.

HellsLittleAngel · 2025-02-10T16:12:03-0500

Forgottendanfan said:
Then why are there so many people with depression, drug addictions, severe mental health problems etc. in relationships? Are these relationships null and void? I guess they all must be. There is no other explanation, because most of these people don't appear to love themselves. Maybe they do and that makes all the difference.

Or maybe all the people who don't love themselves are 34 year old kissless virgins like me and it's all an illusion.

A lot of toxic people are with other toxic people because it's the only love that both know. Nothing good comes out of it except trauma and scars. Everyone has a reason why they involve themselves with the people that they choose to. But, it's true, you can't love someone until you learn to love you.

TheSkaFish · 2025-02-11T13:56:06-0500

I don't know if I can ever love myself, because to do that I have to be good at things I like and I don't know if I can.

I could become a professional, and then I'd be OK with myself, but that's just "not hating myself" - it's not actually "loving myself". There's a big difference.
It's important to get there because that's "zero" for me, the baseline, normal. Getting to dry land instead of drowning. But it's hardly a life I would LOVE.

This stumps me too.
If I have to love myself before I love someone else...I don't know when or if that will be.

HellsLittleAngel · 2025-02-11T13:59:41-0500

TheSkaFish said:
I don't know if I can ever love myself, because to do that I have to be good at things I like and I don't know if I can.

I could become a professional, and then I'd be OK with myself, but that's just "not hating myself" - it's not actually "loving myself". There's a big difference.
It's important to get there because that's "zero" for me, the baseline, normal. Getting to dry land instead of drowning. But it's hardly a life I would LOVE.

This stumps me too.
If I have to love myself before I love someone else...I don't know when or if that will be.

You don't have to be good at everything to love yourself. You just have to accept yourself as is. I love myself 90%. The other 10% is being worked on.