I Have a Question

If you have a low opinion of yourself and are insecure, you have baggage you need to deal with before getting involved with another person. If you don't deal with it, the relationship won't have a chance at succeeding.

Mainly that you have to have some self-esteem. You have to already value yourself, or there’s the risk that you will seek self-worth through your partner and become clingy and needy. It’s a lot of pressure to put on another person.

If you don't love yourself you may be drawn to arseholes who won't treat you right and you won't see your worth.

Consider the opposite. What if you despise yourself? You are then likely to enter into a relationship with another in an unhealthy, needy kind of way. "I am nothing without you. I need you desperately. Life is meaningless without you." That makes you excessively clingy, and it puts a burden on the other person that no human can fulfill -- the other person cannot give your life meaning.

Furthermore, what kind of person would be attracted to someone with such self-loathing? Probably a manipulator, an emotional abuser, someone who feels threatened by a partner who actually can hold her own.

On the other hand, if you consider yourself to be a worthwhile person, then you will communicate that to the other. Healthy people will be attracted to you. Yes, love is about giving, but you cannot give of yourself unless you HAVE a self -- a positive sense of self, a self that is a gift to the other person in the relationship. That is what self-love means to me in this context.

Well if you don't love yourself how do you expect anyone else to love you?

It is meaningless pop psychology pap. Ignore it.

It can be difficult to put forth energy in loving and caring for another person if you struggle with loving and caring for yourself. I see that as partially true. Oftentimes loving someone else is what brings out feelings of love and affection for ourselves

Think it has to do with you accepting the live feel8ng worthy and reciprocating

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbp6W4N1N9s]

A touch trite and sentimental but essentially true nonetheless.

Some really good answers already. 😀