Self-Esteem & Relationships: Can I be loved when I don't like myself?
By its nature, self-esteem plays out in all relationships. Whether your self-esteem is high, low, stable, or unstable there is no escaping that how we feel about ourselves influences how we feel, think and behave in relationships. If we look at self-esteem from an evolutionary psychology perspective, we can more clearly examine the link between the two.
Self-Esteem and Relationships go Hand-in-Hand
To survive, all humans need to feel belonging and acceptance from others. We are social creatures, and to quote my favorite compassion researcher/evolutionary psychologist Paul Gilbert, “an alone monkey is a dead monkey”. You see, we aren’t so different from our primate pals. In archaic times, the quality of your relationships literally could mean life or death. So, it was adaptive to have a way to evaluate the level of acceptance felt in a group, thereby granting us the ability to change our behavior to gain acceptance if we noticed we were on the outs.
Self-Esteem as a “Sociometer”
Self-esteem is essentially a built-in mechanism for us to evaluate ourselves. It consists of multiple domains which is why you may identify having high self-esteem in one area, say work, and low self-esteem in another, like relationships. Some facets of self-esteem are skill and performance based, and others seek to measure our worthiness to be embraced, cared for and accepted by others. We often associate self-esteem with purely how we evaluate ourselves, but this evaluation is informed largely by how we believe others see us.
When we have high relational self-esteem, we feel good about ourselves and feel deserving of care, support and companionship. We feel safe and have a sense that we are accepted. Conversely, when someone with low relational self-esteem contemplates their relationships, they feel bad about themselves, undeserving of acceptance. The tricky thing is that evolutionary psychologists have posited that low self-esteem might alert you to take corrective action, but in reality, low self-esteem has a greater chance of keeping you stuck, increases avoidance of valued activities and has overall negative mental health consequences.
What’s the purpose of self-esteem?
I know I may be making it seem that there is no purpose to having low self-esteem, however if this were true we would be evolving away from this internal mechanism. Despite often being counterproductive, it DOES serve the function of protecting ourselves from the gut-wrenching pain of potential rejection. Having low self-esteem is effective at preventing relational pain in the moment (if we avoid the party we don’t get hurt/rejected) but is ineffective in the long term (by skipping events frequently we lose our connections and feel worse about ourselves).
Breaking the Cycle
When someone thinks they are undeserving and withdraws, they inadvertently perpetuate a cycle of behaviors, thoughts and feelings that reinforce the narrative of “not good enough”. It can be a very tough cycle to break and is a topic near to my heart as a therapist. I hope you are starting to see that it is no wonder that self-esteem issues get triggered by relationships. It doesn’t matter what kind of relationship either. Friendship, romantic, healthy, unhealthy, they can all flare difficulties with self-esteem because it is vulnerable to be in relationships. We need them and yet we don’t have complete control over them. Things change, we change. All of this spells a recipe for self-doubt, self criticism and low self-esteem to our ancient and anxious brains.We all have an inborn desire to be relationally and emotionally safe. So what can we do?
3 Ways to manage low self-esteem in relationships:
Be Aware
Change is hard to come by if we are not first aware of what is happening. With knowledge, comes power! My first and biggest encouragement for anyone struggling with self-esteem in relationships is to begin exploring how your relationship patterns, beliefs and self-esteem developed.
Psychoeducation: Knowing some of the common ways low self esteem shows up in relationships will help you explore with some reference points. In relationships, low-self-esteem often shows up as not asking for what you need or want, difficulty being yourself, jealousy, insecurity and poor relationship choices. Remember that all these feelings and behaviors made sense for the circumstances you were in at some point. For example, you may struggle asking for what you need because you learned to suppress needs to survive with a parent who was unavailable.
Family History: What are some of the unwritten rules, beliefs and scripts about relationships and self-worth that were modeled by your family? Are there generational patterns of note? How were you shown what love is, who gets it and how much?
Personal History: Early childhood and our own formative experiences play a large role in the development of self-esteem. How did your family show they cared? Were they emotionally available? How about your past and current romantic partners and friendship? Did they leave you feeling valued or not?
Systemic and Cultural Factors: Experiences of privilege and oppression impact self-esteem. Does your community accept and support people with your race, background, body size, health concerns, gender identity, sexuality, religion, socioeconomic status or nationality? All points of identity can influence feelings of self-esteem and acceptance. Having multiple marginalized identities can compound and make self-esteem difficult, especially when there are no challengers visible to the dominant ideology.
Trauma: It changes how we see the world and ourselves. Trauma can look different depending on the person and it is a good idea to seek professional support for coping with trauma and its impact on how you see yourself.
2. Be Kind
Once you have awareness, what do you do with it? First and foremost, be KIND. Show yourself understanding for all the unique factors that have combined and contributed to how you see yourself and your relationships. This may seem like a small, throw away step but it is an essential part of improving self-esteem and relationships. Often, when we build awareness it brings up a lot of emotional pain - feeling stupid for not recognizing what was happening, wishing that you could have avoided certain “mistakes” if you had known sooner and similar. Repeat after me: You did the best you could with the knowledge and resources you had at the time. Your way of viewing yourself and acting in relationships is proof of brilliant adaptations. While you did not get to choose these adaptations (thank you human nature) they kept you safer than you might have been otherwise.
3. Be Active
You can be in a fulfilling and healthy relationship when you’re still working on self-esteem. I would encourage you to unsubscribe from any source that suggests that you must love yourself fully in order to have satisfying relationships. The truth is, the quality of our relationships will have the biggest influence on our self-esteem. In order to enhance your relationships, you will need to commit to responding in healthy ways when patterns driven by low self-esteem show up. Patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving will not change overnight, and nor do they need to! Even years into working on self-esteem and relationships, you might see old adaptations pop up. This is totally normal. You can commit, imperfectly, to showing up for yourself sensitively in these moments.
For example, you notice self-critical thoughts and feelings of fear about wanting to go on a date with your partner. Thoughts like, “why am I so needy…. I should not impose on them, I’m too much” arise. Respond actively to these thoughts by:
Noticing the pattern. You are aware and now you are in charge of how you respond next.
Inviting knowledge and wisdom. You know that avoidance will contribute to a cycle of not feeling worthy or good enough. It’s not workable which prompts you to a more helpful response.
Show yourself compassion for struggling in this moment. You are human and all humans struggle with fears about relationships and acceptance. They are inherently risky!
Take action aligned with your values and inner wisdom. You know deep down that you are inherently good and worthy of love, even when our tricky brains try to convince you otherwise. Tolerate the fear and ask for the date anyway. Enjoy!
