by Selina J

Created on: June 02, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

My three-year-old tells me he loves me every day - roughly a hundred times. Sometimes these declarations of love come out of nowhere, other times they are accompanied by a nice, slobbery kiss or even a football tackle hug. It seems that when we are young children, it is inexplicably easy to "love", or at least love is a much simpler concept. He loves me, I'm sure of that, but he also loves his new bug catcher he got from the dollar store.

As we grow older, love tends to get really confusing and much more complex. Why? I believe part of the reason is because it is necessary to love yourself before you can truly love others. Self-love is part of being a toddler, but everyone outgrows that stage at some point. And while loving yourself when you are older should be easy to do, for many people it is a major obstacle to overcome, even insurmountable for some. Thus, loving others becomes more difficult if not impossible. Add sex and possibly babies into the mix, and it really complicates emotions. Many times, lust is mistaken for love, and it leaves people emotionally broken and bruised when things don't work out.

My brother was married for over twelve years. His wife had huge confidence and self-love issues from the start - something he had truly hoped he could help her overcome with time. She had endured a lot of psychological abuse as a teenager and no matter what he tried with her, she could not overcome it. The key is that she is the one who has to do it for herself, and she wouldn't - and still appears she hasn't figured it out. He truly believes she wasn't able to love him because she didn't have a fundamental love for herself. Even now she lacks the confidence to make any kind of decisions, which is one of the reasons the divorce has been dragging on for almost two and a half years now.

The divorce process has hurt my brother's love for himself and his confidence. He is having trouble with relationships. He is learning to love himself, love life in general, so he can get himself to the point of loving another woman again. Until his heart and his ego heal, loving others will be difficult for him.

Learning to love is not easy for many because of an inner struggle to love one's self. Love should come naturally, but there are complex inner obstacles to fulfilling this basic need. To love others, you have to first love yourself.

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