What do you think of the saying “you can’t love someone unless you love yourself?”

28 comments

  1. There is some truth in this, personally I think you have to love yourself to feel loved by someone else, otherwise all the love in the world won’t be enough. Oops. I understood the OP wrong. Some people are far kinder to others than to themself.

  2. Tired of hearing it lol I love myself enough, just send me another person to love plz I’ll be so happy. I won’t cry anymore.

  3. I think it’s bullshit. You can love someone else without loving yourself.

  5. I think it’s the message the saying wants to convey what matters. Of course you *can* love someone if you don’t love yourself, the thing is that you *shouldn’t*. If you love yourself first, you will know what your value is, and what you do and don’t deserve, instead of wondering “What did I do wrong?” if the person you love hurts you.

  6. I think the saying should be “you can’t love someone the way they deserve to be loved, until you love yourself”

    If you don’t live yourself you put too much onto the other person, all your insecurities, and that isn’t fair to them.

  7. There’s some truth but I like to take it as you have to feel at ease with yourself alone. Meaning when you’re with someone, they’re not your whole identity but a part of you.

    In terms of loving, human is a social creature. Learning to love yourself, while loving others could coexist.

  8. You can love someone if you don’t love yourself, but you are unable to accept if they love you back. So you will feel that there must be a misunderstanding, they are lying or they are dilusional… till you ruin the relationship. If you don’t love yourself, only unrequited love and relationships with emotionally unavailable people feel genuine.

  9. It bugs me. Everyone in a successful relationship is completely self actualized with no baggage, insecurities, or hang ups? I doubt that. I think though a lot of people need to realize that their relationship doesn’t define them and maybe that’s the sentiment this is trying to express?

  10. Indeed cliché. But it works, because yeah, I can’t love someone if I don’t love myself, not in the narcissistic way, but loving myself means taking care of her no matter what and that’s what I struggle with, because sometimes I lose myself to others.

  12. It’s not that you can’t love someone, it’s that you can’t accept love from someone else if you don’t love yourself and believe you deserve love.

  13. It’s bullshit.
    I don’t love myself so I need someone to love me and tell me that I’m enough so that way I can slowly learn how to love myself aswell while being supported by my partner.

  14. I’m in the, probably, minority on this. I believe you can absolutely love other people while hating yourself. In fact, you can love other people too much, which can contribute to the problem. Like emptying your glass of water out for everyone else and not keeping any for yourself. It can be hard to learn how to love yourself the way you love other people. But the saying does circle around in a way, where you can only love other people in a full, healthy way if you love yourself too. When you do that, you’re able to set boundaries and that’s so overlooked for self love.

  15. It’s incredibly narrow-minded. I understand the intention and agree that the worse you think of yourself, the worse you’ll let others treat you. And if you still have a lot of work to do on yourself you may not be emotionally available as a partner. But as someone with CPTSD, this phrase makes me feel I shouldn’t be allowed love because I’ll never truly love myself the way some others can. Having a healthy, supportive relationship has actually been the reason my recovery has come so far. If I listened to sayings like this I’d still be struggling with it alone and pushing everyone away because I don’t “deserve” their love yet.

  16. I don’t agree. I think the more correct way to say it would be “In a relationship, both people have to work on themselves and together on a relationship.”
    Meaning, you sure can love someone if you don’t love yourself, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to work on it.

  17. It’s a gross thing to say. Telling someone they are incapable of love is never going to increase their self esteem, plus it is factually incorrect.

    Could go into toxic positivity as well. We don’t all love ourselves 100% of the time.

  18. I’ve never really liked this saying. I understand the point it’s trying to make, but it kind of pisses me off. So many people that have either suffered abuse or have insecurities or bad experiences with love believe that they are unlovable. The saying implies that they can’t truly love someone until they love themselves, which frankly, I don’t agree with it. These are the kinds of people that have a strong desire for love and often give their love way too freely to others. It often isn’t until they are in a loving relationship or find love that they finally start to believe they are lovable. The saying would essentially keep them from ever really being able to find love because it would keep them in this vicious cycle of oh I don’t deserve love or oh I’m not ready for love so I can’t have it yet until I love myself yet I don’t love myself because no one loves me and no one will accept my love…?

    I don’t find this saying to be very useful

  19. I think you can love someone, but you can’t fully accept their love for you. I struggle a lot with my image and accomplishments, so I sometimes question why my friends are my friends. I assume it’s the same thing with a SO.

  21. i personally don’t like it. i do think it’s important to have self love but ppl who struggle with that also deserve to be loved 🤷🏾‍♀️

  22. It’s true to a certain extent , if you hate yourself you will be insecure with your partner and your treatment towards them will be influenced by your own insecurity

    But i also think if a person feels completely invisible or undesirable in general like rarely anyone finds them attractive or show interest in them , that can be hurtful and soul crushing no matter how much you try to love yourself

  23. It’s often misunderstood

    It’s not that no one can love you if you don’t love yourself- Of course someone can love you regardless how you feel about yourself and you can love them. It’s that YOU will not believe they can love you if you don’t see what there is to love about yourself. And a result of that is typically pushing people away. Basically- self sabotage.

    There’s a movie called Phat Girlz starring Mo’Nique where the protagonist is a bbw. She’s very insecure about her appearance. So when a very (objectively) attractive man becomes enamored with her, she can’t accept that he doesn’t have some kind of ulterior motive or that he wouldn’t just cheat on her. This guy truly likes her, finds her beautiful, and wants a relationship; but she believes no one can truly find her beautiful and love her so eventually she pushes him completely away.

    I wouldn’t say this is a perfect movie but it does illustrate this saying for what it truly means.

  24. If you don’t love yourself, then you’re using this other person to find a way to love yourself rather than actually loving them. This can turn into a toxic thing when you NEED someone instead of WANT them. Two people who are completely happy with themselves coming together to share this happiness is an ideal relationship. IMO.

  25. Frequently, if you don’t love yourself, you find yourself in toxic or codependent relationships, because you don’t have a sense of who you are and what your healthy boundaries should be.

    Can you love someone else but not yourself? Sure. But it is most likely going to be an unhealthy relationship. Loving yourself will give you the clear vision you need for a healthy relationship.

    — the voice of experience.

  26. I think it’s a mix. There’s some truth – you can’t steward someone else’s love for you well if you don’t love yourself enough to allow love in. You have to walk in the belief that you deserve love, so that you can properly care for and acknowledge the effort that others put into loving you.

    On the other hand, I resent the implication that if you struggle with self love, your companionship is not an asset to others. That’s BS. You can show others love and have good relationships, it’s just the fruit of a loving relationship (platonic, familial, romantic, etc) is sweetest when everyone rests in the assurance that they deserve love.

    Without that, we will end up pushing each other away.

  27. I think it should be, you can’t sustainably or healthily love someone unless you love yourself. If you dislike yourself and invest so heavily in loving someone else, then in a way it’s a form of infatuation/ self depreciation. You give someone else the power over you, as you dont have the self esteem to regulate/care [f](https://for.love)or/love yourself. This is ofc a generic statement and doesnt apply to everyone, but its just something I have experienced personally.

  28. Definitely some truth and it fucking sucked realizing it. But he never really loved me back either way soo.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like