Princesses long for their princes and Romeos long for their Juliets. But as you fall in love, you
may also fall into plenty of pitfalls. Movies and different types of media market soulmate tropes
and things like love at first sight that we, as a society, fall victim to. And because we are so
enamored by the prospects of a happily ever after, we forget that real life does not follow the
same script as fantasy.
Iâm not saying that a fairytale romance is completely unrealistic, but those stories leave out a lot
of realistic elements of relationships. We often see love for what it could be, and not what it is.
Itâs easy for someone to feel like chemistry is a telltale sign of true love when itâs really just a
bad case of attachment issues. So for whatever reason you desire a relationship, whether it be for
dinner dates, shared playlists, or maybe the possibility of a forever pairing, itâs smart to retire the
rose-colored glasses. Looking at things through a different lens will help you see your partner
and yourself for who you really are and where youâre currently at.
The biggest and most cliche lesson Iâve learned in my romantic endeavors is just how important
it is to love yourself more than your partner. I consider myself to be an empathetic person, but
love has taught me it is both my biggest strength and my biggest weakness. After doing my fair
share of teaching (and borderline begging) boyfriends to behave and treat me right, I thought
those failures proved that I was unlovable. That no matter who I fell for, no partner would ever
be able to catch me. Dating when youâre young is hard enough, but it took me a couple of times
to fall on my face to realize that without my own self-love to cushion me, I would keep getting
hurt.
Thatâs not to say that you canât be loved by someone when you donât love yourself. Everyone
brings baggage into a relationship, and sometimes the relationship may even bring subconscious
issues and fears to the surface. So feeling like an open wound is something you must
undoubtedly be comfortable sharing with your partner, and comfortable with feeling in yourself.
Your emotions are not a burden, and you and your partner should have enough emotional
intelligence to assist one another with those hard moments and feelings. Believe it or not, a
healthy connection should help you develop your self-love skills, not drive them deep into the
ground.
More often than not, people seek love to supplement the love they cannot give themselves. They
want a partner to fill that cup, but their poor self-esteem drains it faster than another person can
fill it. Although that personâs heart is damaged, and they deserve some grace, theyâre
unknowingly contributing to the beginning of an unhealthy dynamic. They are creating puddles
for their partner to slip on, and feeling surprised when they fall. Self-love and self-awareness go
hand in hand. So while self-awareness would help a person realize the mess their baggage is
making, self-love would help them carry it in a manner that doesnât fault their partner. Whether
you are a half-full or half-empty person, there should at least be some water in that cup before
you find someone to fill it.
When it comes to relationships that are toxic due to the other personâs problems, active pursuits
of self-love serve as both a sword and a shield. You can protect yourself from harm, and cut
through any BS thrown at you. In other words, you wonât tolerate behavior and dynamics that drain you. Itâs one thing to care about a person and offer forgiveness when they make mistakes,
but itâs another to keep excusing the same mistake over and over. Itâs one thing to set a boundary,
but itâs another to falter when confronting the one who crossed it. Most importantly, your
self-love can help you recognize when you are truly at fault, or when your partner is framing you
for the results of their insecurities. Your self-love helps you stay afloat when someone elseâs
self-esteem sinks them. While you may want to do everything in your power to save both of you,
weâve all seen Titanic. Sometimes, the person you want is not meant to float with you (RIP
Jack).
Time in and out, I had let the end of my relationships tell me the type of person I was. I wasnât
confident in my character, so I let them confirm negative beliefs about myself. But recently, I
realized that although these people knew me, they didnât see me. They let me take the blame for
the way their insecurities operated, they let me overcommunicate to ears that werenât listening,
and they let me feel like I had to keep giving to get back a bare minimum level of affection. If
anything, these relationships taught me that where Iâm at in my journey is far beyond first base.
When Iâm on third base, they expect me to run back to first and carry them to home plate. And
we all know baseball does not work like that. To score, you canât go backward. You must go
forward.
So thatâs what I did. Despite leaving them behind, and despite the pain, guilt, and fears that
followed me, it was always the right choice. It was a win that felt like a loss. I bent the rules for
them, struck myself out, and did everything in my power to help them. I played multiple rounds
of this hypothetical baseball game with my fair share of partners until I realized what the truth was. It wasnât that I was giving enough, it was that I was giving too much. I was
over-functioning in my relationships so my partners wouldnât let me down or hurt me. Then,
when they did mess up, they werenât held accountable. As a mother would try to prevent her
toddler from sticking their fingers in outlets and swallowing small objects, I was
disaster-proofing my relationships and then letting my partners loose with the hope they
wouldnât break anything. I was coddling my partners like they were little boys, and giving them
a safe space to let me down. Because of the lack of maturity of those partners, this dynamic
worked for them just fine. But it never did for me, because the moment it was my turn to respond
to their mistakes or mistreatment, I was forced to comfort them and resume the role of the
caretaker.
While the effort I was putting into the relationship was for my partners, the benefit of that work
was primarily for myself. Because I was afraid of being hurt and mistreated, my fault was
perpetuating a dynamic I thought would prevent it, when all it did was breed it. I was working a
full-time job to maintain these relationships, doing things like always planning dates or
communicating at an elementary level that was easy for them to understand. I let my partners
assume a more relaxed role and reap the benefits of my labor. What I didnât realize was that had I
loved myself more, I wouldnât have tolerated half of what I did. Instead, I wouldâve let âboys be
boysâ and found a healthier connection that wouldâve helped me grow in the direction I wanted
to go.
While you may dream of being swept off your feet, a good first step to finding that fairytale
ending is focusing on yourself. While that advice is once again cheesy and probably repetitive, investing in your personal growth is an effort that will never go to waste. Loving yourself is a
skill, and as you would train for a sport or study for a test, you must consistently practice it. You
donât want to lose your spark trying to light someone elseâs match. Rather, you and your partner
should feed off each otherâs flame. You donât have to tolerate things just because you love
somebody. You donât have to apologize for problems you didnât start. And you donât have to
overwork to make up for somebodyâs lack of effort. Respect and love yourself as if your cup was
full, and someday, the right prince (or princess) will come.