So, Valentine's Day has come and gone and you're living single for the first time. Perhaps your self esteem was a little low and your hopes dragged behind a bit, too. Hopefully, you didn't settle for any nonsense all in the name of tradition and loneliness. God forbid. Perhaps suddenly you found yourself wishing you were in a relationship... pressured by all the "love"in the air; balloons, roses and red heart shaped candy boxes and such. Not to worry, if your divorce is fresh (less than a year), you're likely not ready to even date, much less venture into a real relationship again. Give yourself just a little more time. However, for those who have been over forty and under divorce for years, be clear about what you contributed to the demise of your marriage and check your self-esteem at the altar of sacrifice...
if it's a bit low, that is. Only high self-respect will do, now!
One of the things affected in older women upon the death of their long-term marriage is actually their self-esteem. It gets clobbered during divorce, especially if you're a woman whose husband traded you in for something "better" in his eyes. As a result you might've been left feeling that you don't measure up and nobody else will want you, either. Or, perhaps you always struggled with it a bit. You don't have to continue in this way. Come on, it's time to get up!
I discovered a list of ten things by Suzanne Lachmann Psy.D that are indicative of suffering esteem. Many women have NO IDEA that they are displaying low self-respect or esteem. Some have such behaviors and don't know why. Some know why and don't know how to change it. If you see yourself in any of these, you may want to hold off on another relationship or even dating at this time. Check it out:
Nothing interferes with the ability to have an authentic, reciprocal relationship like low self-esteem.
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.
The following are 10 of the many ways that low self-esteem can manifest
in your romantic relationship.
(Note
that adult manifestations of earlier emotional, physical or sexual
abuse are way too complex to be characterized in this post. Trying to do
so would not do service and so those pathways to low self-esteem will
be omitted from this article.)
1. Bring the Bling - You feel wretched and fantasize that
a knight in shining armor will take you out of your circumstances and
make everything better. This longing may have formed from falling in
love with the fantasy of a father. Maybe yours was unavailable
enough that you could idealize him without ever testing his fallibility.
You may think you know why your father never “saved” you: it was your
fault, not his. Or maybe he did, over and over and your relationship has
to make you feel just like that again. Therefore, you may feel
compelled to hold tight to the fantasy of perfection as the bar you set
for your romantic partners to live up to. Of course they can’t. Even if
your partner turns out to be solid, consistent, and loving (though not
in a flashy way), you may disqualify the efforts, and find ways to
sabotage the relationship.
2. Testing - How could he really love me? He doesn’t really love me, does he? Below
the surface these insecurities guide your emotions and actions. You
can’t believe you could be truly loved and so you test your partner
every chance you get so that he can demonstrate his value (which you
don’t believe or trust anyway). You may even sabotage the relationship
because you know your partner will inevitably leave anyway. The end of
every relationship allows you to say, “See, I told you so. I’m
unlovable.” More often than not, there is intense regret in the
aftermath when you lose a partner this way.
3. Guarded - If your parents experienced a painful divorce or
betrayed each other, you might feel unable to trust a partner now,
whether you are conscious of your guardedness or not. You may be
hesitant and afraid of allowing yourself to love so that you either
abandon your partner before you can be abandoned or you won't allow
yourself to get fully into a relationship in the first place. Without
trusting that maybe you won’t be betrayed, you are deeply afraid of
exposing yourself to the possibility of being hurt.
4. Resilient - Despite
circumstances that could contribute to low self-esteem, some women are
just built to be resilient. They’re born that way or work really hard to
acquire the ability – despite negative experiences – to engage in a
positive, substantive relationship as they mature. Maybe there was a
figure somewhere in her life that provided guidance and support and
helped her to offset her low self-esteem with resilience. Resilience enables women to be more measured in their approach to men, rather than hysterical about it.
5. Man-Crazy - With
low self-esteem, it can seem as if nothing comes easily or naturally to
you. Instead, because you don’t see yourself as naturally lovable, you
feel like you have to fight and claw and strive for a mate. It’s as if
unless you go nine million extra miles for something, you’re not going
to get it. Unfortunately, this can make you obsessed, consumed and
infatuated with your object of affection in a way that ruins the ability
to have a viable trajectory. You're already so far ahead. When the
relationship doesn’t develop easily or on your timeline, it's hard to
tolerate. Instead, this is your cue to work even harder. Just know that
it is hard for the boy to sustain that level of intensity right along
with you, and it may be a more intense experience than he is ready for.
6. Seeking Financial Safety - Are
you willing to surrender your hopes for an authentic connection with a
partner to guarantee wealth and "financial safety"? This category
manifests as the need to trap a mate with looks or sex or
your other physical resources while hiding what you see as a shameful
inner part of yourself. This also allows the emotional safety of
control: you’re in control of your ability to please a man without
having to give away your heart. This is different than the rescue
fantasy in that you don’t expect to be swept off your feet by a fantasy,
but to guarantee financial safety, at the expense of other feelings you
may have.
7. 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.
8. Settlers - You’re
willing to commit yourself to the person who expresses interest in you.
You become much less discriminating about who you choose. You may even
be willing to put up with behavior that doesn't satisfy you, because you
feel lucky to have anyone at all, even though you are aware you are not
happy.
9. 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.
10. Disbelief - It
can be hard to imagine and even harder to believe that you can create
and sustain authentic connections. As a means of protecting yourself,
you assume dishonesty even from an honest partner, which in turn sours
the relationship as it goes on. Then, as you disbelieve your partner so
often, maybe even relentlessly that he may begin to consider lying a
viable option – he is already “doing the time”, why not commit the
crime? This in turn reaffirms your belief that no one can be trusted.
We
all know there are far more ways women express low self-esteem in
relationships. But sometimes the self-knowledge gained by evaluating a
list like this can help you understand not just pieces of who you are,
but also pieces of who you are not. Self-knowledge can help you steer
away from some of these patterns of low self-esteem in relationships
toward understanding,
accepting and integrating your emotions, beliefs, and behaviors.
Appreciating how your actions have been impacted by your history can
help you create an authentic connection in the here and now.
Nhat Crawford, author, Single For The First Time, 2014
Nhatsbooks.com
Twitter:@nhattheghost
Nhat Crawford/Facebook
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