We already love ourselves, but not always in the right way

What we carry sometimes reveals an attempt to protect ourselves. It remains to be seen whether that protection truly does us good.

Chapter 003 · 11 min

We already love ourselves, but not always in the right way

I will start with a sentence that may seem strange:

We already love ourselves.

I am talking here about the love we seek to give ourselves. Even some bad decisions try to protect us, to relieve us, to give us back a place, to preserve an advantage or to bring us closer to a happiness we believe is threatened.

That does not mean we always treat ourselves well.

We can love ourselves with a logic that harms us. We can seek our happiness with a method that pushes away the people, the projects and the values that contributed to it. We can defend ourselves in a way that damages our own self-respect. We can want to free ourselves from a pain and build it a bigger house.

So the problem is not always the absence of self-respect.

We sometimes lack a better way of offering it to ourselves.

A behavior does not sum up our whole nature

When our partner calls us selfish, hot-tempered, irresponsible or unfaithful, we may hear a condemnation bigger than the remark that was made.

We hear:

"That is what you are."

So we defend our whole person. We recall our positive qualities and the days when we were generous, calm, faithful, present or responsible. We want to prove that the word is false in absolute terms.

Yet our partner does not always claim to know our deep nature. This person is often talking about what they regularly receive from us.

One outburst of anger does not make us a hot-tempered person. But if anger becomes our usual response, the people who live with us will eventually use that word to describe their experience.

Thinking of oneself is not selfishness. But when our decisions continually seek our own benefit while leaving the cost to the other, the word becomes harder to dispute.

A mistake does not make us an irresponsible person. But if we decide without looking at the consequences, then always ask others to pay the bill, the label starts to tell something visible.

That label may still be unfair. Our partner may judge too quickly or ignore our efforts. But that possibility must not make us flee the useful question:

What behaviors gave birth to that word?

Our habits can describe us today. They do not define everything we can become.

We have already changed habits. Some disappeared because we grew. Others were replaced when their consequences became too heavy.

We are not condemned to remain the version of ourselves that our last bad behavior presented.

We can do better.

That is not flattery. It is the responsibility that comes with our potential.

Behind a bad method, there is often a good being sought

Let us observe an anger.

Something frustrates us or gives us the impression of losing our place. We raise our voice, cut the other off and let out everything we were holding back. For a few seconds, it can feel good. The pressure goes down. We feel we have defended ourselves or forced the other to measure our suffering.

The anger offered us a benefit.

That does not mean it was useful.

Let us observe revenge. Our partner hurt us. We look for a gesture that will make them feel something comparable. When this person finally suffers, a part of us calms down. We feel the balance has been restored.

Revenge offered us relief.

That does not mean it repaired the couple.

Selfishness sometimes follows the same logic. We accumulate demands, attention or advantages because each satisfaction produces a small pleasure. We do not necessarily say to ourselves: "I want to destroy the other's happiness." We rather say: "I need this. I deserve it. It will do me good."

Our inner need may be understandable. Our method can still be destructive.

Understanding the good being sought does not whitewash the behavior. It shows us where to build another solution.

If I shout so as not to feel powerless anymore, how can I regain power without losing my self-control?

If I take revenge to obtain a form of justice, what consequence can make responsibility visible without creating a new fault?

If I control because I am afraid of losing, what questions, what references or what boundaries will inform me better than surveillance?

If I think only of myself because I forgot myself for a long time, how can I take back my place without taking away all of the other's?

We must not only remove a bad behavior. We must understand the function it fulfilled, then learn to fulfill it differently.

Relief is not yet a gift

Not everything that does us good necessarily does us good.

A humiliating response can flatter our self-respect for thirty seconds and leave us several days of conflict. A silence used to punish can give the impression of controlling the scene, then install the distance that will make us suffer. A thoughtless purchase can produce immediate pleasure and tomorrow remove the security we wanted to build.

The pleasure is real.

So is the bill.

We sometimes confuse self-respect with the satisfaction of every desire. I want something, I grant it to myself, therefore I am taking care of myself. I do not want to make an effort, I protect myself, therefore I respect myself. I am suffering, I say exactly what comes into my head, therefore I am faithful to my emotion.

But self-respect is not measured only by the comfort of the person we are for five minutes.

It also protects the person we will find again tomorrow.

It leaves that person a peace, a self-respect, relationships, a respected body, a credible word and decisions that person will be able to own.

To love ourselves consciously is to accept a sometimes unpleasant question:

Is what I am offering myself now truly a gift, or only a reward whose bill will arrive later?

A good way of loving ourselves may require giving up a pleasure that costs us too much. It does not refuse our need. It refuses that the first available means should automatically be the best.

Taking our pain seriously without giving it the whole house

After a breakup, a betrayal, a humiliation or a great disappointment, some people stop taking care of their life. They refuse the activities they loved, distance themselves from their loved ones and treat every smile as a betrayal of their pain.

The inner logic may say:

"After what happened, I cannot act as if everything were fine."

The sentence seems coherent. But who really benefits from that abandonment?

Our partner may have committed a fault. We add to it a life that stops receiving the other forms of love still available. We want to show that the loss was serious, and we make it bigger.

Recognizing that does not oblige us to smile on command. We can feel sadness and continue to nourish ourselves with what remains alive. We can be disappointed and protect a project that bears no responsibility in that disappointment. We can lose an important source of love without voluntarily closing all the others.

Our suffering deserves a place.

It does not necessarily deserve the whole house.

We are no longer alone in the equation

A single person can organize a large part of their life around their own interests, as long as they accept the consequences.

In a couple, our happiness enters into a construction that contains at least two others: our partner's and the one the relationship makes possible.

Our partner also chose this relationship for a reason. This person seeks affection, peace, listening, security, intimacy, support, consideration or a particular way of building their future. They did not enter our life only to witness our personal search for happiness.

We can therefore love ourselves enormously and still be incapable of building as two.

Loving ourselves is not enough.

Feeling love for our partner is not enough either.

We must produce a relationship in which each person finds real value.

Self-respect becomes dangerous when it turns the other into a tool. Our partner must reassure us, desire us, serve us, forgive us, listen to us and respect our boundaries, while their own expectations become complications.

We then call self-protection what may have become an organization of the couple around us.

Giving ourselves the right love requires protecting our interest without making the common interest impossible. We must not sacrifice ourselves until we disappear. Nor must we grow by using the other's vital space.

Our way of seeking happiness must leave this person a reason to keep building it with us.

Giving a lot does not always mean loving correctly

We can love sincerely and go about it badly.

A person gives gifts because that is their natural way of expressing affection. The gesture may be appreciated, but the main lack remains listening. The more the distance grows, the more the first person buys gifts.

They give more.

The couple does not necessarily receive better.

Another person makes themselves available at any hour, solves every difficulty and anticipates every need. They call it support. Their partner may end up experiencing it as surveillance, a debt or an impossibility of becoming autonomous.

The intention is beautiful.

The form must still be examined.

We must not only ask how much love we give. We must look at whom we give it to, in what form, in what quantity, at what moment and with what results.

A bad dose can tire.

A bad form may not be recognized.

A bad moment can turn attention into pressure.

And a person who receives a lot without ever appreciating, protecting or returning any value can convert our love into an acquired resource.

The quality of love is therefore measured neither by its quantity alone, nor by its gentleness, nor by the beauty of our intention. It is also measured by what it produces for us, for our partner and for the couple.

Sometimes we did what was needed, but not in the way suited to this person. Sometimes we did well and our partner does not know how or does not want to appreciate it. In that case, increasing love indefinitely will not necessarily give us a favorable verdict.

Loving better can mean adapting.

It can also mean stopping automatically giving what the other never protects.

The reciprocity test reveals our special permissions

A simple question can reveal certain bad forms of self-respect:

Would I still find this behavior acceptable if my partner used it with me?

When we keep silent, we say we need time. When the other stays silent, we call it contempt.

When we raise our voice, we explain that we were suffering. When the other gets angry, we conclude that this person is bad.

When we think of our expectations, we talk about self-respect. When our partner defends theirs, we call them selfish.

Situations are not always identical. A silence of a few minutes is not an abandonment of several weeks. An isolated mistake does not have the same weight as a habit. Reciprocity does not consist in claiming that everything is equivalent.

But "it's not the same because it's me" is not a nuance. It is a special permission.

Putting ourselves in the other's place does not oblige us to agree with them. It adds their experience to the calculation. If our method seems fair to us only when we benefit from it, we may not be facing a principle, but a privilege.

Good self-respect does not ask the other to endure what we would declare unacceptable if we suffered it ourselves.

It seeks a rule coherent enough to protect two dignities.

Regret must correct the method

We sometimes look at an old decision with today's information and insult the person we were.

"How could I do that?"

"I was really stupid."

"I ruined my life."

We must recognize mistakes without falsifying their context. At the moment of the choice, we were often trying to obtain a good: keep the relationship, avoid loneliness, protect an image, find peace again, receive love or get out of a pain.

We may have calculated badly. We may have ignored consequences, given our trust too quickly or chosen a method incapable of producing the expected result.

But regret must not deny everything our former version was trying, even clumsily, to protect.

We can say to that version:

"You wanted to do me good. You did not yet know how to go about it well. Now that I know the price, I am going to change methods."

That sentence removes no responsibility. It turns the experience into learning.

Useful regret updates our logic.

Useless regret condemns the past and leaves the method intact.

The good being sought deserves a method that does not contradict it

Why do we sometimes cling to a response that costs us? Because we do not look only at its price. We associate a reward with it: no longer being powerless, no longer appearing naive, regaining attention or preventing a fault from being erased. Our way of acting may be clumsy while what we are trying to protect has real value.

Let us imagine a person who sends several accusatory messages after a broken commitment. She says she wants to finally be taken seriously. Asking her only to stop the messages amounts, in her eyes, to asking her to let her demand disappear. For another response to become thinkable, the two must be separated: giving up the general accusation does not mean giving up the specific commitment. She can say what is missing, what that changes for her and what she intends to do on her side if nothing becomes reliable.

Self-respect therefore does not consist in removing every demand. It seeks a demand that also takes care of the one who carries it. Does the method make the demand more visible? Does it leave our rest, our word and our dignity less exposed? Does it avoid making other people pay for what they did not choose?

The well-being sought may be immediate or distant. Apologizing may embarrass us today and allow us tomorrow to recognize ourselves in our actions. Refusing a pleasant expense can protect a freedom we want to keep. But invoking tomorrow must not deprive the present of all joy. We compare ways of living, not only isolated sensations.

We can thus speak to our old method without insulting ourselves: "I see what you were trying to give me back. I also see what you took from me. Let us look for a response that protects that value without presenting it with the same bill."

A relational request does not necessarily reveal a lack of self-respect

We can know our worth and nevertheless suffer from a lack of recognition in the couple. Self-confidence does not make gratitude, closeness or the partner's participation useless. Answering every request with "first learn to love yourself" can shift onto the person the work the relationship must accomplish.

Let us imagine that we have handled an important task and would like its cost to be recognized. We must look at what was agreed, what we contributed and what we are asking for now. Are we seeking permanent approval, concrete participation or simply that our effort not disappear from the shared story? These are different questions.

Self-respect can then help us not to condemn ourselves for that need. It can also help us formulate it without demanding an unlimited debt. "I know what I contributed; I would like us to look at how this burden is recognized and shared." We are not asking the other to create all our worth. We are asking them to participate in a relationship in which that worth receives a place.

Giving our worth a way to live

While writing this book, I myself understood certain things I thought I already knew. Certain ways of protecting myself were not protecting me. Certain ways of loving were tiring. Certain reactions that proved me right did not give me a better relationship.

I am not sharing this because I would have arrived further than others.

I am sharing it because our ability to understand more proves that our behaviors of yesterday are not the limit of what we can offer tomorrow.

We are worth more than certain habits we have let speak in our place.

But knowing our worth is not enough.

We must give it a way to live.

An exceptional person who continually uses a destructive method does not produce an exceptional relationship. Their potential remains a promise their partner cannot yet inhabit.

We must therefore look behind each behavior:

What good am I trying to seek?

What immediate reward keeps this method going?

What does it cost me afterward?

What does the person with whom I claim to be building receive?

What other form of love could protect the same need with better consequences?

We do not need to learn to love ourselves from scratch.

We must make our love more conscious, more coherent and more useful.

Because self-respect is not only the amount of attention we give ourselves.

It is the quality of the person that attention helps us become.

The questions that check the way I love myself

What good am I seeking behind this behavior?

What immediate pleasure risks presenting me with its bill later?

What other method could respond to the same need?

Would I accept this behavior if my partner made me endure it?

What does my way of loving myself produce for me, for the other and for our couple?