If you can’t believe you’re good enough, how can you believe a loving partner could choose you? Low self-esteem can make you test or sabotage relationships that have potential, or settle for relationships in which you’re treated in a way that matches your beliefs about yourself. That said, low self-esteem doesn’t always look the same way in relationships. When you think of someone with low self-esteem, perhaps you imagine a person who is shy and struggles to contribute to the conversation. Or, perhaps you picture that friend who always puts down their appearance – the “do I look too fat?” question may be familiar. The following How Low Self-Esteem Affects Your Relationships you should know in the post below.
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Sensitivity
People with low self-esteem may take feedback or simple requests personally. For example, you may feel rejected or hurt when your partner asks for some ‘quiet time’. Your hurt may cause you to recoil or snap at your partner, and an argument may boil over. While your low self-esteem clearly affects your relationship, your relationship also affects your self-esteem, as you may regret your irrational reactions.
Jealousy and insecurity
Low self-esteem can give rise to jealousy and insecurity in a relationship. You may question your worthiness to your partner, and believe it is a fluke they like you. As such, it is normal for people with low self-esteem to expect their partner may be attracted to someone else or fear they will leave the relationship.
Low self-esteem can stress you out
When your self-esteem is not high enough, you’ll be too anxious to please, and you’ll hide your own thoughts and feelings to avoid disagreements. Your partner may not know who you really are, and, as a result, you’ll be unable to resolve interpersonal conflicts.
Seeking Insecurity
Because you are familiar with situations that create low self-esteem – being left, being cheated on, etc. – you gravitate toward relationships in which you’re able to feel this familiar insecurity. When it’s not there, you may even create it. If the relationship becomes too secure, you may become disinterested and bored and you may stray. You’re so used to having to work to save an insecure relationship that these types of relationships become the only ones you gravitate toward. But, at the same time, a deeper part of you tries to push your relationship to the brink and then back again so you can artificially create an experience of insecurity.
Your partner tends to be Scared of Intimacy
Were intimacy and connection in your repertoire growing up? If not, these experiences may feel uncomfortable now. You may get really scared as the relationship progresses because authentic connection feels so foreign and fake. Instead of allowing this connection, you may back away and become more distant emotionally, and shut down sexually.
High confidence includes self-acceptance
With healthy self-esteem, you can accept both your strengths and your weaknesses. You can feel all right about being less than perfect and unafraid to show vulnerability. That kind of authenticity can deepen your intimate connection with your partner.
What happens when you lose self-respect?
When you give more than you receive in a relationship, you’d start to lose more of your self-respect. And with time, your perfect relationship could turn into a clingy one-sided love story. Here are 5 situations that could arise because of your low self-respect.
#1 You lose your voice in the relationship. Decisions start to get taken without your approval or notice.
#2 You become a puppet. You meekly string along with your partner because you genuinely believe you have nothing of value to add to the relationship.
#3 You’re not taken seriously by the people that matter to you. You could end up just being an object or an accessory because your opinions offer no value or objections.
#4 Love turns to gratitude. Instead of experiencing a balanced relationship with equal love, you truly start to believe that your partner is worthy of a person who’s so much better than you.
#5 Love starts to crumble. Your partner will start to believe that they deserve someone better because you’re just not good enough for them. And you, on the other hand would feel stifled and confused. And even if you voice an opinion, it may just anger or annoy your partner because they don’t think you’re worthy of being heard.
