You Deserve Love: Understanding Self-Worth and Building Meaningful Relationships

written by Micah Brown

There’s a saying that’s gone around for decades that has rubbed me the wrong way.

You can’t love anybody until you love yourself.

Even as a kid, this statement always bugged me. Why does somebody who doesn’t love themselves not deserve the love of somebody else? Wouldn’t thinking you don’t deserve love because you don’t love yourself make a person feel even worse?

I believe that there are good intentions behind that statement, but we all know what the road to hell is paved with. From an outsider’s perspective, they feel as though they are being helpful and guiding this individual along a path that will ultimately result in being ready to love and be loved, but this does not reflect reality.

Sometimes, one should not seek a relationship, but that does not mean they have to be their very best selves to find a partner (or partners) whom they can love and who will love them in return. Looking for somebody immediately after a breakup, tragedy, trauma, or mental health crisis is not going to go well and should be avoided. That doesn’t mean that given some time, despite whether or not we have fully healed ourselves, we aren’t as deserving of love as somebody who has not experienced any of these events. If we all waited to be the best version of ourselves, we’d never find somebody to spend our time (and possibly our lives) with.

Understanding Love

There are likely thousands of books that talk about understanding love. Love is an industry that rakes in billions of dollars annually – just look at Valentine’s Day. We are bombarded with images of ideal love in the media, whether it is a TV show, a movie, a podcast, or the music we listen to. We are told what love is and what love isn’t. Magazines have quizzes you can take to help you determine your style of love, your love language, or the love language of your current partner(s).

We are made to feel less than when we do not have somebody else to share our lives with. When these hollow representations of love parade across the media we consume, we feel even more lonely than we did before absorbing those messages. It is no accident that the media plays on those emotions. When you are adrift in a sea of people while continuing to feel alone, you scroll more and look to find a more immediate sense of accomplishment or to feel something that is not that aching pit in the middle of your chest.

What we are generally presented through media and pop culture is not an authentic representation of love. In most cases, it focuses on the happy parts of their relationships and ignores the things that occur behind the scenes of every relationship. My partner and I do not always agree – even on the big stuff. We had a conflict to try and work out, and I would say that we managed to do a reasonably good job of it, but it was not without a lot of experience behind us. We have both been married before and learned many important lessons from those previous relationships.

You have probably heard the bible quote from 1 Corinthians: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”

Wouldn't it be wonderful if that were precisely what love is? Understanding and holding together with your partner would be much easier.

Love is messy. Love is complicated. Love will often include envy, jealousy, and anger. It is how those emotions are ultimately handled within the love of a relationship that may predict the path to the relationship’s success or failure.

I have friends who loved each other deeply but ended up divorcing because they knew that despite their love, their relationship was not healthy. They were both jealous people and often fought over small things. After the divorce, they remained friends and continued to be a part of each other’s lives in a much more positive way.

So, what is love?

At its purest, love is the desire to see the object of one’s affection happy. That means that sometimes, that person is happier with somebody who isn’t you. Love is doing everything you can to see that person happy, even if they never know it was you (do not get weird and stalker-like with this behavior). Contribute to a charity they support, donate anonymously to one of their friend’s GoFundMe campaigns, or simply give them a smile when they seem to be feeling low. But no matter what, if you’re doing any of these actions to woo them into loving you, the gestures are empty of any real meaning. There will be times when seeing somebody happy means letting them out of your life entirely, and that can be a difficult thing to do.

Love is acceptance of the person (or persons) you love for exactly who they are, flaws and all.

The same goes for you when you are feeling down on yourself. You deserve love, flaws, and all.

I Don’t Love Myself, How Can I Love Somebody Else?

You will never find it more difficult to love somebody than to love yourself. In most cases, we are our own worst critics. When somebody compliments us, our first thought is to diminish ourselves and become self-deprecating.

Think about a time when you complimented somebody and had them brush off whatever you just said and try to become smaller. Does that person deserve less love because of that? Do you? When you see that happen, build them up. Do not allow them to shrug off their accomplishments. Let them know how deeply proud you are of them.

At the same time, when somebody compliments you, stand up and thank them wholeheartedly without trying to diminish what you have done or make yourself seem insignificant next to their accomplishments.

What you don’t want to do when you are in a place where you do not love yourself is send all your love outward toward your partner(s) or possible partner(s) and put the responsibility of loving you entirely on them. Allow them to love you, but do not demand or expect that they will cover the self-love that is currently lacking in your life. The role of a partner in this instance is to help you find your way back to loving yourself - and if you cannot love yourself, at least like yourself.

When Do I Know If It’s OK To Find Love?

There is no simple answer to this question because it will be different for everybody. On a very general level, you know you are ready to love and be loved when you no longer crave somebody else's love merely to fill up the lack of your self-love. It is the moment when you no longer want to find love for the sake of feeling loved back but because you want somebody to exist in happiness simply, and hopefully, your presence in their life will add to that happiness.

Put another way, you will know it is OK to seek out love when you are no longer doing it out of a desperate attempt to feel no longer lonely. That does not have to mean that you love yourself.