The Most Important Person in Your Romantic Relationship
You owe yourself the love that you so freely give to others
You are very valuable. Every human being deserves love, affection, and happiness. who can give it all?
yourself.
Putting yourself first in a relationship is not a form of selfishness
What it means to put yourself first in a relationship is to put happiness first. Happiness can come from knowing when you need some alone time or being confident in making decisions for yourself. On the other hand, egoism in a relationship occurs when the partner does not want to consider the opinion, needs, and point of view of his partner.
How to Prioritize Your Happiness
Give gifts to yourself like the gifts you give to others. Self-care is one of the keys you can use to maintain healthy and meaningful relationships with yourself, as well as with others. If you’re having a bad day, make yourself a comfortable place to go. Accept all the feelings you had that day.
In addition to self-care, you can also use words of affirmation to maintain your emotional stability. Form positive words that are full of tenderness for yourself, such as when you encourage a close friend. Affirmation words can be like “I’m fine, everything will be fine”, “I love myself for everything I’ve been through. I am proud of my accomplishments” or “I deserve to be loved and happy”.
You can’t depend on other people’s love
The feeling of being loved must be born from within. You can’t depend on other people to make you feel loved. If you don’t have love for yourself, how can you give your partner love, care, and warmth? Love in a partner that is not based on love for oneself will be full of demands and expectations.
When you are full of love from within, it won’t be difficult to find ways to make other people love you. Its manifestation does not require the partner to do something or seek validation of love from a partner.
“Marry” Yourself
Tracy Mcmillan, a romantic relationship researcher, likens the form of prioritizing in a relationship is to “marry” yourself, marrying yourself first. As with any sacred marriage relationship, there are some promises that need to be made to yourself.
One of his promises is to love yourself regardless of what has been and is happening. Loving yourself when everything seems fine is easy, but when things are hard, that’s the challenge. It takes courage and willingness to be able to love yourself as you are with all the irregularities and unfulfilled hopes. Can we love ourselves when we can’t get our dream job? When the long-awaited dream partner hasn’t said hello? Can we love ourselves when we fail? Because when you have made a promise to love yourself as you are, then regardless of any circumstances, you still want to survive with yourself.
Benefits of Putting Yourself as a Priority in a Relationship
Putting yourself first in a relationship will benefit both you and your partner. When you treat yourself with respect, you give others permission to treat you with respect as well. There are standards you set about how others can treat you. From there you can choose and prioritize people who are good for you.
On the other hand, your relationship with your partner will be more mature. Maturity is reflected in you and your partner supporting, reminding, and improving each other to achieve the best version of each other. Not the other way around, becoming dependent on a partner for emotional needs. The rest, because you are enough with yourself, then you don’t always think about yourself. The focus will shift to providing the best for your partner.
In fact, during the course of life, all humans walk alone. The people around you who have shared various experiences also have their own lives. So, actually, you’ve been in a relationship with yourself for a long time, from birth until now. You are a friend to yourself in undergoing various changes in the journey of life. Give love and affection to yourself as you love your partner with all your heart.
