People often believe that love is a mutual thing. When someone loves you, it is expected that you love that someone back. The truth is that this is sometimes not the case.
It is possible to love someone and not get the emotion back in return. The ‘Renaissance’ expression for this is unrequited love.
But there is an even more important question. Is it possible to love someone who doesn’t love themselves? In other words, can someone love a person with low self-esteem or lack of self-love?
Many experts will say an emphatic “no” to the question. An attempt at loving someone who doesn’t love themselves will amount to a waste of time. To them, our capacity to love others begins with loving ourselves first.
True but not entirely!
People who love themselves are confident and good at social interactions. Little wonder their ability to understand the emotional state of other people. This makes it possible for them to love another person a lot more easily.
What this implies is simple. In your relationship, at least one person has good self-esteem. The other person may not love themselves. You are in the perfect position to make them more balanced emotionally. All you have to do is take the action of simply loving that person.
Still wondering how to go about this? You’d learn a few tips as you continue reading.
Prepare yourself to love unconditionally
The first thing you need to do is decide to love your partner unconditionally. What does it take to love unconditionally? It requires that you accept them the way they are. Their actions or inactions may upset you. Your goal is to not be moved negatively. This will go a long way to ensure that their esteem does not deepen further.
It may not be an easy thing to do. No one can love their partner without loving them all the same despite all odds. The long and short: to love unconditionally is to accept unconditionally.
Project Positive Things to Your Partner
The problem with someone who does not love themselves is a bad self-image. They see themselves negatively. When things go wrong, they blame no one but themselves. And, worse off, they can only expect nothing positive in life.
The good news is: we all have good and lovable stuff about us. Some of us just fail to acknowledge them.
As a loving partner with good self-esteem, you can help them see positive and lovable things about them. In other words, be their mirror.
Have regular, confidence-boosting chats with them. If possible, make the chats spontaneous, especially when things are not going their way. Over time, your partner will begin to see themselves in a new light.
Be a role model to your partner
As long as you have good self-esteem, you can be a role model to your partner. You should act confidently at all times. Whenever you have achieved success whether small or big, share it with them. There is a way your success communicates to them that they can be successful too.
The flipside should be communicated too. When you fail at something, let your partner know about it. This shows them that anyone can fail.
Also, how you handle the failure creates a case study that can inspire confidence in them. They practically learn the efforts required to pick themselves up after falling.
Of course, this should be a subtle thing. It is instructive that you avoid reminding them about their esteem issues.
Be Your Partner’s Cheerleader
Those who do not love themselves have a penchant to ignore baby steps in their endeavors. They are quick to judge themselves if something doesn’t go right. When something goes right, they are slow to acknowledge it. Most likely, they will not realize it.
You must be prepared to celebrate your partner whenever they succeed at anything. This may be hard to do at times, particularly for those with little patience. You must encourage yourself with your goal in sight.
The key to boosting your partner’s confidence is in your cheerleading hands. You will get there with a little more forbearance.
Communicate Your Relationship Issues with Empathy
Now, you must be careful to not abandon the hard issues in your relationship because of your partner’s lack of self-love. All relationships have problems. Whenever such one occurs, you must communicate with your partner with empathy.
Empathy is all about looking beyond the pronouns “me” and “I” and putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. In this case, that someone is your partner.
This affords you a great opportunity to kill two birds with a stone. Bird One: Iron out your issue. Bird Two: Succed in not affecting your partner’s esteem despite your issues with them.
As you can see, empathy is an antidote for a big ego. It helps to sort things out by seeing the world from other people’s unique lenses.
Bonus Tip: Keep In Mind That You are Helping, not Fixing
Remember the first point made in this piece? Prepare yourself to love unconditionally if you are keen on loving your partner who doesn’t love themselves. By doing this, you become their much-needed helper.
Note that the word used is “helper” and not “fixer”. No matter how hard you try, you can never fix another person’s emotional or psychological problems.
The best you can do is acknowledge it in a loving manner. You can also activate some of the tips in this piece, making you a helper.
Lack of self-love often begins in childhood days, festering and becoming a vicious monster in adulthood. While you provide support to a self-loathing person, the ultimate change would depend on that same person.
By and Large
Can you love someone who doesn’t love themselves? Yes, Indeed!
This post has extensively shown how to go about it. The foundation is that you must be ready to love your partner unconditionally. Your role is to be their mirror (to show positive things about themselves), role model, and cheerleader.
When issues crop up, endeavor to communicate issues with them with empathy. Ultimately, you are a helper rather than a fixer of your partner’s lack of self-love.
Thank You🙏
- Addicted to love: What is love addiction and when should it be treated?
- Loving Others: The Impact of Compassionate Love on Later-Life Psychological Well-being
- Regulation of Romantic Love Feelings: Preconceptions, Strategies, and Feasibility
- Towards a Comprehensive Theory of Love: The Quadruple Theory
- ‘Something there is that doesn’t love a wall’: histories of the placental barrier
- Love and Romantic Relationships in the Voices of Patients Who Experience Psychosis: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis
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