Last update: April 10, 2020
It will certainly have happened to you at least once to hear yourself say "you can't love someone if you don't first learn to love yourself". Unfortunately, however, loving yourself is not that easy. To do this, we must strive to get to know each other thoroughly. This means becoming aware of our origins and our history, learning from it and, even more difficult, accepting it. We must also understand that our level of self-awareness and self-esteem are fundamental when choosing a partner.
Although we are aware of the benefits of loving ourselves and others, often we cannot do this without first having done a work on ourselves by observing models that allow us to distinguish the different emotional bonds.
According to the research conducted by the neurologist, psychiatrist and writer Boris Cyrulnik, we must try to observe, during daily life, different people and different "affective styles".
This happens because observing the different ways of loving helps us not to associate love, indifference and hatred with specific behaviors. It is an awareness that opens our minds and enriches our personality.
“The first thing two people offer in being together should be a feeling of love for themselves. If you don't love yourself, why should I love you? "
- F. I want
Types of couples
From the first years of life we ​​learn to relate to others. At first, we relate to our parents and the rest of the family. They represent for us the first example of an emotional bond. We observe and learn from the way they treat us and how they relate to each other.
Little by little, our social context is expanding. From when we start meeting new people until at some point we find ourselves choosing our first partner and starting our first romantic relationship.
Boris Cyrulnik says that our childhood affects the kind of emotional bond we will establish with our partner. According to Cyrulnik, there are different types of couples that we can summarize in 3 macro-categories: couples in which one improves each other, couples in which one of the two harms the other and couples in which one harms each other.
Hits made up of two people who improve each other are destined to last longer and experience a better quality of life, and this applies to both life as a couple and for individual life.. This exchange of positive energies also positively affects the health of both, improving their emotional balance and sense of humor. This is the only relationship model that is really worth experimenting with.
As for the other types of couples, which are based on damaging themselves, we should intervene by trying to improve them, changing negative attitudes and trying to give a new meaning to the relationship, which lays the foundations for a healthier relationship. If this is not possible, the possibility of having to end the relationship must be considered.
However, to end a relationship sometimes we need to feel secure, and for this we seek the support of other people. This phenomenon can lead us to immediately look for a new partner and in this way, having not had time to reflect on what happened, we will probably make the same mistakes.
We are not half of anyone
The choice of the partner happens unconsciously, based on our life experience, but in accordance with the moment we are living. If we do not strive to improve and get to know each other better, we will not be able to choose the right partner with whom we can live a relationship based on mutual improvement.
Our partner cannot meet all our needs, therefore having this idea in mind and hoping it will come true is just a utopia that could lead us to constant frustration. However, as people, we need to relate to other men and experience different kinds of relationships that can enrich us.
One of the most dangerous beliefs we can have about romantic relationships is that we consider ourselves incomplete beings, who need another "half". This thought has us led to have a distorted view of love, given the feeling that anything can. To embrace this vision is to be unrealistic, to ignore the limitations that love can bring. In doing so, we end up having relationships based on addiction and fear.
"The privilege of knowing how to feel good alone gives you the most precious one, of being able to choose who to stay with."
-Anonymous-
Knowing how to distinguish between suffering and love
our beliefs and our choices are not only the result of what we observe in our surrounding environment. It is evident that we are influenced by a great deal of social stereotypes: rigid models to which we believe the world fits.
The media, continually feeding us these stereotypes, take on a significant weight on our way of acting. Television, cinema, literature bombard us with information, but we must be able to understand if this information is complete, correct and real. Both in the fairy tale of Prince Charming and in the most famous books and films the same idea is always reaffirmed: love and suffering go hand in hand.
They make us believe that the more the members of a couple argue, treat each other badly, live an impossible love hindered by everyone, the more they love each other. For this reason, we end up listening and uttering phrases such as "love is not beautiful if it is not a quarrel" or "great love, great pain". And we begin to dream of living impossible or secret loves, those loves that look at the intensity rather than the quality of feeling. This obviously prompts us to choose our partner based on these romantic fantasies rather than real life.
But not only that, it leads us to take on a very specific role within the couple, an imposed role that often ends up suffocating our true self, our true thoughts, feelings and desires. Getting rid of these preconceptions, rejecting this role to which we seem to be destined is difficult, but not impossible.
Be happy with yourself to choose your partner
All these misconceptions about romantic and other relationships (often also apply to friendship) they can lead us to bad decisions in choosing a partner and even emotional dependence. Situation in which we forget that we are independent people who have the right to have their own identity.
To strengthen our "immuno-emotional system", it is necessary to learn to know and love each other, in order to choose the partner wisely, focusing on someone who can increase our happiness. But even before seeking happiness with others, one must find it in the relationship with oneself.
"When we can't stand being alone, it means we don't properly appreciate the one mate we have from birth to death - ourselves."
-Eda LeShan-
Choose a mature enough partner
Is critical keep in mind that when you have a relationship as a couple, mutual respect is fundamental, and the choice to stay together must be free, dictated by will and not by need or emotional dependence. With these observations in mind, we will enter into a romantic relationship because we prefer to be with the other person (although we are fine alone), and not because we need to be with someone to fill the emptiness we have inside with the love of others.
To establish a relationship in which we mutually improve, we must choose the partner with the heart, but always taking into account our needs and desires. To do this, it takes effort on both sides.
"It is so difficult to love yourself that you prefer to love others."
-Marcello Macrì-
