So I hope I explain this clearly. At the end of our session yesterday, I (32 M) asked my Therapist if she thinks I should even be dating. She said no because I don’t recognize my own value, and I would be too likely to get into a relationship with someone who doesn’t treat me well.
Self esteem in relationships is something I have been trying to fix for a long time. I have made no progress, and it has gotten worse. The longer I go without any intamcy, the more convinced I am that I am just a defective man when it comes to a women wanting them.
Should I listen to her advice on this? I trust most things my therapist tells me, but this one is hard to swallow. I’ve had one relationship as an adult and it lasted less than a year, and I can’t stand the idea of being single for many more years. I’ve also read some studies that show extended singleness when you want a relationship can actually exacerbate depression and self-esteem issues. I feel like I’m getting pigeon holed into a place I shouldn’t be. Maybe some people need to take a break from relationships, but some people might need just that, contrary to popular opinion.
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My therapist told me to start dating because it would boost my self esteem
If you go to therapy is for listening to your therapist YES.
First off, any good therapist would not “tell” you something like that. A therapist’s role is to make the client realize things on their own and come to their own conclusions, Your therapist was being inappropriate and unprofessional by telling you what to do.
Second, the reason the client needs to come to their own decisions is that it is the client’s life. You need to look at yourself and weigh the pros and cons. Then you determine your priorities and whether or not any risks involves are worth the potential gains.
Your “value” does not and never will come from external sources. SELF esteem and SELF worth come entirely from you—hence the term SELF. As long as you can date without making your self esteem/worth/acceptance dependent on the other person’s validation, then you can date all you want.
Consider finding a different therapist. And date IF that’s something you want to do and IF you can keep the other person’s views of you in perspective and realize that only you determine your worth.
I don’t think there’s a “right time” to be in a relationship. Growth and development should happen independent of a relationship anyway.
What I do think they are seeing is a sense that you won’t feel complete without a relationship, and that’s where it’s good to step back and reflect. Oftentimes we bring a feeling of desperation to every interaction without even realizing it. And that can only drive people away, making you feel worse. If anything, I bet your therapist realizes this and wants to help you work through that before you find yourself in self-fulfilling-prophecy scenarios. It’s okay to want to spend your life with someone, but there’s really no expiration date on worthiness, care, or love. No matter your age or experience, you have time to meet someone you can connect with in a real way. Keep working on yourself. Don’t run away from real connection if you find it. But maybe don’t chase it.
I would tend to trust your therapist on this one. This doesn’t sound like advice they would give lightly. I think you have 2 ways to look at this though. One is through sunken cost fallacy. You will only see what you are missing out on and the work you have done. The other is that this is a compliment and that your therapist actually thinks highly of you. They just believe for you to get the best from life you need to see yourself in a better light. I would use that as motivation to seriously change how you see yourself.
However you need to live your life and make your own mistakes to learn so you have to decide if this is right. What I would do is ask them more about it and see what benchmarks they could name to help you decide. Then even if you date immediately or not you atleast have some great benchmarks to work towards.
If you don’t value yourself then you won’t find a partner who values you. You teach people how to treat you. So she’s kinda right in that you may get yourself into a situation that’s even worse for your self esteem by giving someone else the opportunity to take a swing at it.
But, dating is also a game. If you don’t even play, you won’t ever win and it takes practice to win.
Your therapist isn’t wrong. Get to a point where you would be better for dating and then go out there. You may end up getting into a toxic relationship.
I fully believe that you can’t love someone else until you love yourself. I’ve dated people who didn’t know their self worth and they treated me like they treated themselves…badly.
Through my experience, if you don’t know your own self worth, you won’t be able to recognize the worth of others. You should absolutely work loving you first. When you do that, you will radiate confidence and attract others who love themselves as well.
YES! This is best advice I’ve heard on the sub in very long time and I hope others also listen to your therapist
It sounds to me like you’re desperate for female attention and you don’t want to listen to your therapist. Whether you do or don’t is your choice, but you do sound like the type of person who would jump to get into a relationship with anyone, regardless of how they treat you. If I’m wrong, then wonderful, but the fact that you see being single as some horrible thing tells me that maybe your therapist has a point.
“Self esteem in relationships is something I have been trying to fix for a long time. I have made no progress, and it has gotten worse.”
Learning to love yourself and have standards shouldn’t take a lifetime!
My guess is you’ve shared more insights with your therapist than you have here.
However, based upon the “snapshot” you presented here, this is my advice.
(Let go of the “seller mentality” and adopt more of a “buyer mentality”.)
The *seller* is usually the *nervous anxious one* going over their presentation in their head while trying to imagine overcoming objections to close the deal. The *buyer* on the other hand is usually calm as they ask questions *to determine if* a product/service *meets their needs*.
You are entitled to have your own mate selection screening process and *must haves list*.
You are entitled to have your own “red flags”, boundaries, and “deal breakers”.
Most people you meet don’t become dates, most dates don’t become relationships, and most relationships don’t lead to marriage. As one adage goes: “Many are called but few are chosen.”
When you realize someone is *unable/unwilling* to meet your needs it’s usually best to move on.
Life is too short to be trying to change water into wine.
Ideally you want to find someone who *already is* what you want in a partner.
The goal is to have a “soulmate” not a cellmate.
No one is ‘stuck” with anyone. Suffering is optional.
***”Decide what kind of life you actually want. Then say no to everything that isn’t that.”*** – Unknown
***”When you start seeing your worth, you’ll find it harder to stay around people who don’t.”*** – Unknown
***”The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.”*** -W.M. Lewis
***“Never allow waiting to become a habit. Live your dreams and take risks. Life is happening now.”*** ― Paulo Coelho
***”Dating is primarily a numbers game…. People usually go through a lot of people to find good relationships. That’s just the way it is.”*** – Henry Cloud
Best wishes!
I am a woman so I can’t speak from your side. However I was in shitty relationship after shitty relationship. I took a 5 year break from dating and once I started dating again I found my person. They are wonderful to me and for me. Sometimes a solid break is needed.
Yes, dude. That is EXCELLENT advice and you should 100% be sticking to it
My concern for you is that if you’re attempting to date and experiencing rejection because you’re already not in a great headspace and have low self-esteem, that the rejection will push you into something much darker. It’s important to understand that women aren’t here to heal you. We are our own people with our own issues. Relationships will not fix you and they won’t necessarily make your life better.
A healthy partnership with someone you love is absolutely an improvement, but if you don’t even know what you want or how to find that, you’re at risk of getting into some very toxic situations. You asked your therapist for an opinion and they gave you one. Probably best to take that advice you paid for.
if you want a relationship that is healthy and makes you happy, you need to have self love and a sense of self worth. receiving intimacy from women when you dont have that foundation will ultimately feel empty and worthless. You will start to doubt the truth of it and start to resent them.
Listen to your therapist, but don’t just let there be a void in your life. Consider going to college, starting a new career, picking up a new complex hobby, learn a new language, intern somewhere. I wish I would have done these things instead of focusing on codependent relationships. Your therapist is right.
Consider looking into support groups like CoDA or Emotions Anonymous, you can find others like you who are actively working on themselves and low self-esteem, maybe you’ll learn something and make lifelong friends.
I can attest to this very thing being 100% true. I am 29, and have been single for almost 12 years.
You’re in a vulnerable position, whether or not you fully realize it yet. You likely seek validation or a sense of worthiness through being chosen by a female. I believe males tend to feel these things easier and more often,
due to our evolutionary history. In any case, your therapist is 100% on the mark. Being that validation is what you are seeking outside of yourself, it is more likely you will tolerate mistreatment, concede your own self respect, to acquire that validation.
Furthermore, you are likely to be emotionally volatile in a relationship. If you do receive the validation you are looking for, there is a very good chance you will become emotionally attached to receiving it. Any behaviors or words by an SO which may threaten the sense of value you get from them will strike at the insecurities your attachment is built upon. This can have a violent effect on your psyche, driving you deeper into a mindset of scarcity or loneliness, and/or reinforcing thought loops which feed trust issues.
What I have found most helpful for myself has been to stop seeking. I had to identify what behaviors of mine were linked to my insecurities, and stop those behaviors. I am no longer on the dating market as of this past March. Being single and not looking was a choice of mine. My dating life was never really fruitful anyway, so it’s not like I’m missing out on anything. Am I still lonely? Yeah, sometimes, but it isn’t as hard to deal with when my self worth isn’t intertwined with whether or not I have a successful dating life.
You’ve got to divorce those two things from one another.
That being said, I do waver sometimes. It is by no means a perfect process. It’s a battle for me some days to recenter myself. The important thing is that I have a center to return to. I have a way out of the negative thought loops which kept me trapped, for so many years, feeling unwanted, unworthy, hopeless, depressed, and often resentful towards women.
Whose advice do you think is better, a mental health professional or anonymous redditors who don’t have the best luck with dating themselves? People in happy relationships aren’t on this sub.
Your therapist is right, if you don’t respect yourself you will be unable to enter into a healthy relationship of mutual respect. Your thoughts for doubt will poison your actions and reactions. When I was a kid I thought I was a nerd and that everyone hated me. So I had trouble making friends. The reason it was so hard to make friends is because I was misinterpreting everyone else’s actions towards me. I wasn’t making an effort and I was depressed and constantly looked miserable.
I think you should listen to her. She has more context than us. She probably has a reason to give you this advice.
Don’t get into a relationship but date. But when you date, don’t focus so much on “how to make the other person accept me”. Think about “what are we connecting on? How do we respond to each other” – this will help you learn your value
Have you looked into codependency at all?
Yes, it is true that some people with certain mental health issues can benefit from relationships, and that the lack of them can potentially exacerbate or worsen issues…
HOWEVER… your therapist obviously has a fuller picture and better understanding of your life and mental health than what you’ve shared here, and thus likely is in a better position to give you the best (and professional) advice.
I think there’s some logic to this, but I also feel the advice in the realm of “basically, don’t get into a relationship unless you’re already happy/healthy/etc. alone” is short-sighted, and basically just straight up wrong.
I think we really do need good people, good partners, good support, to actually work on being better at relationships and connection and all of the things that might trouble those of us with self-esteem issues, or who feel they don’t *really* deserve to be loved for who they are, and other similar struggles I see a lot of.
It’s one thing to spend time working on yourself. This is important. Introspection, therapy (or whatever works for you), and a general idea of what you want are good things to be taking into the world of dating, but good things to be doing for yourself regardless.
I think however that you really have to put these efforts into practice, see them “in the field”, and do the work there too. You can’t just sit at home doing lots of therapy and self-work and expect to come out of that ready to be an amazing partner in a perfectly healthy and functional relationship.
Learning things like how to hold boundaries, how to speak up for yourself and your needs, your own value as a person beyond just “what you do” for a partner/friend/family member, it takes real work with real people to practice these things and get good at them. To me, this means not putting yourself in a “I won’t date” box, but maybe just letting it be an organic thing you don’t sink a ton of time into,
When someone comes along that fits into that space of being the kind of person you like, and someone who seems like they can engage with you where you’re at, it’ll be a good thing to do that work with them and build the kind of relationships you want to be having.
All that being said, if on a basic level you struggle to accept when someone is genuinely into you, and are looking at all times for what must be wrong with *them* to actually like and want to invest in a connection, then yes, you might have more work to do before you’re ready to really embrace an intimate relationship.