Some men are jerks. Some women are just plain crazy. Now that I’ve acknowledged the two biggest stereotypes that people think are to blame for screwed up relationships, let’s look at the real root cause of dating drama: feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem.
I’m not running around hugging trees and braiding daisies into my hair, but I honestly believe that we would all struggle a lot less with dating and relationships if we lived in a perfect world where each and every one of us were told from a young age that we were beautiful, special and had unique gifts to offer the world – and to the person with whom we would eventually share our life. If each of us grew into self-assured people brimming with confidence, we would naturally possess the tools we need to live out the life of our dreams and create a healthy, happy, drama-free relationship.
Unfortunately, we’re not living in a perfect world.
Most of us spend a lot of time wondering whether we’re pretty enough, smart enough, interesting enough, sexy enough, funny enough, thin enough and so forth, and these worries can cause us to feel inadequate in a relationship.
Since these worries feel so out of our control, and at the same time we want to be loved, we often cope by plunging ourselves head-first into a relationship believing that if we just focus all of our energy on making our partner happy, everything will work out fine.
We start making decisions based solely on what we think they want or what they like. We don’t want to inconvenience them with our needs or offer any strong opinions that might conflict with their own.
Looking for reassurance, we may find ourselves clinging to our partner, hoping that he will make us feel secure in the relationship – and in ourselves.
We voluntarily stop doing some of the things we care about. We cancel plans with our friends if we think that there’s a chance our partner will want to spend time with us. We mislead ourselves to think that if we just hang around him or her enough, we can make the relationship progress forward out of sheer will…
Read more: Belief Net
