by Mary Rice

Created on: July 20, 2009

Low self esteem, or the inability to see worth in ones self can slaughter a relationship. As consumers, we look and purchase things that we see as worthwhile or that have some form of value to us. As human beings we look for the same thing in others. How though do we measure this? Often it is from our own self perception, thus if we do not see value in us, it becomes very difficult to see why others would see worth in us. A viscous cycle.

Where does low self esteem come from though? I think that it develops at least from he messages;both verbal and non-verbal; that family and society give us. E internalize these and use them to build a perception of ourselves. In short, comparing our insides to others outsides. How often do we look at our neighbors or fiends and say to ourselves They have the perfect _________. We assume that what they have is all that they are, when in fact they might have the same fears or troubles we have, they just don't show on the surface.

Years ago I had a friend who looked at my husband and daughter and house and was actually jealous of me because she saw that I had what she wanted. She never looked beyond that. She's done things like that for as long as I have known her. Sadly, her relationships have been self destructive, both with husbands and children. She does not see herself as being worthy or even able to achieve her goals or desires, ergo, she doesn't, or does so in a way that is less then her perception of ideal.

As a child I always felt that I wasn't good enough, or smart enough or pretty enough or anything enough. As I went through school I doubted my ability to do things such as math, because in elementary school I was told that I wasn't smart enough. Until I went to college in my mid-thirties I believed that things like algebra were beyond me. It took some wonderful teachers and a fantastic boyfriend, not to mention four years, to change that perception. Through my years married to my second husband, I honestly believed that my personal wants and desires were unimportant. In that belief I began to believe that I was unimportant. I saw myself as less. When I dared to try and stand on my own two feet I still doubted myself as a person, a woman and a parent. Some days I still do.

It gets uglier though when both people in the relationship have low self esteem. Those relationships just don't survive. Both people in the relationship are trying to both pull the other closer and push them away. I think the technical term for this would perhaps be co-dependent.

How though did all of these things affect my relationships? Simply by making me doubt my worth as a human being. It wasn't until my current husband came into my life ten years ago that that slowly began to change. In the beginning years together though I can remember telling him that if he wanted to run screaming from this crazy, stupid lady and her weirdo kid I wouldn't be angry, that I would understand completely. God love him, he'd wrap his arms around me and tell me to hush, that he wasn't going anywhere. Be that as it may, I still doubted myself as being worthy of him. Over the years I've managed to over come the worst of it and gee, he still loves me and spoils me rotten!

Low self esteem is heal-able, but it takes time, just like developing a healthy, long term relationship. It takes courage, too. The courage to change and heal. Healing low self esteem is mostly an inside job. We have to be able to love and accept ourselves in our entirety before we can do the same with anyone else. It's worth it, because as human beings, we are worth it.

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