Do You Really Have to Love Yourself Before Someone Else Can Love You?

‘You have to love yourself before anyone else can love you.’

It's one of those phrases that has become so familiar that we rarely stop to question whether it's actually true. It appears in books, on social media and in conversations after difficult relationships, usually offered with good intentions. Work on yourself first. Learn to love yourself. Become whole. Then you'll be ready for a healthy relationship.

There is something appealing about the idea. Our relationship with ourselves matters, and how we think about ourselves can influence the relationships we choose, what we tolerate and how comfortable we feel expressing our needs. But the suggestion that we must first achieve some state of self-love before we're capable of loving - or being loved by - another person isn't really how human relationships work.

In fact, psychology suggests something considerably more complicated, and perhaps more hopeful: sometimes we learn to see ourselves differently because somebody else sees us differently first.

We don't develop our sense of self alone

From our earliest relationships, human beings learn about themselves through other people. Attachment theory, originally developed by John Bowlby, proposed that our early experiences with caregivers contribute to what he called ‘internal working models’: expectations about ourselves, other people and relationships (Bowlby, 1969). Is somebody likely to respond when I need them? Can I rely on other people? Is closeness safe? And, importantly, am I worthy of care?

These beliefs aren't necessarily conscious, nor are they permanently fixed in childhood. But they can influence how we approach relationships later in life. Someone whose needs were regularly dismissed may learn to minimise them. Someone who experienced inconsistent care may become particularly sensitive to signs of rejection. Someone who was valued primarily for being easy, successful or helpful may begin to associate being loved with what they can provide.

Our sense of self, then, has always been partly relational. We don't spend childhood independently constructing perfect self-esteem and then emerge into adulthood ready to form relationships. We learn who we are partly through thousands of interactions with other people - and that process doesn't suddenly stop when we become adults.

Relationships can change what we expect

One of the most important developments in attachment research has been the recognition that attachment patterns can change. Early relationships matter, but they aren't destiny. Later experiences can reinforce our expectations about relationships, but they can also challenge them.

Someone who has learned that expressing a need leads to rejection may gradually experience something different with a responsive partner. Someone who expects conflict to end in abandonment may discover that disagreement can be followed by repair. Someone who has spent years believing they are ‘too much’ may encounter a person who doesn't experience them that way at all.

Over time, repeated experiences of reliability, responsiveness and care can begin to alter what we expect from relationships. Research suggests that particular relationship experiences can contribute to greater attachment security, including among people who have previously experienced insecurity (Arriaga et al., 2018).

This doesn't mean the right partner magically heals everything that has happened before. Nor should a romantic relationship become a substitute for addressing difficulties that need our own attention. But it does mean we don't necessarily have to arrive at a relationship completely healed. Relationships themselves can sometimes become part of the way we change.

Being loved can affect how we see ourselves

There is also evidence that self-esteem and relationships influence one another. Longitudinal research with couples has found evidence of a reciprocal relationship between self-esteem and relationship satisfaction: how we feel about ourselves can affect our relationships, but our experiences within relationships can also affect how we feel about ourselves (Erol & Orth, 2014).

That makes intuitive sense. Imagine repeatedly experiencing someone who listens when you speak, takes your feelings seriously, enjoys your company, respects your boundaries and remains present when you're imperfect. None of this magically creates self-worth, but it does provide new information about who you are and what you can expect from another person.

Perhaps I'm not as difficult as I thought. Perhaps my needs aren't unreasonable. Perhaps disagreement doesn't automatically mean rejection. Perhaps I don't have to earn affection by being useful. Perhaps somebody can know the less polished parts of me and stay.

Research into perceived partner responsiveness has similarly shown the importance of feeling understood, cared for and valued within close relationships (Reis, Clark & Holmes, 2004). Being seen by another person doesn't replace the work of developing our own sense of worth, but it can become part of that work.

The problem with ‘love yourself first’

There is another reason I think we should be careful with the phrase ‘you have to love yourself first’. It can quietly turn love into something we have to qualify for.

If you're insecure, work on yourself. If you struggle with your body, learn to love it first. If you've experienced rejection, sort out your self-worth. If you're anxious in relationships, become secure before entering one. Only then are you ready to be loved.

For somebody who already feels fundamentally inadequate, the message can easily become: I'm not even good enough to be loved until I've fixed the fact that I don't feel good enough.

That's quite a burden. And it isn't one we generally apply to other forms of human connection. We don't tell someone they need to overcome loneliness before they deserve friendship. We don't tell a frightened child that they must develop inner security before we comfort them. Human beings are interdependent. We regulate, reassure, encourage and influence one another throughout our lives. Needing some of that doesn't make us psychologically deficient, it makes us human.

At the same time, there is an important difference between allowing relationships to contribute to our sense of security and requiring another person to provide our entire sense of worth. When our self-esteem depends almost entirely on somebody else's approval, relationships can become frighteningly precarious. We may tolerate poor treatment because losing the relationship feels like losing evidence that we're lovable. We may constantly seek reassurance, abandon our own needs to preserve closeness or interpret ordinary disagreement as evidence that love is disappearing.

Developing self-compassion, boundaries and a more stable sense of self therefore matters. But perhaps the goal isn't perfect self-love. Perhaps it's learning that your worth doesn't disappear when somebody is disappointed in you; that being rejected doesn't make you inherently rejectable; that you can want and need connection without another person becoming responsible for your entire sense of identity.

You don't need to be completely healed to be loved

There is a strange idea embedded in much of modern self-development culture that we should somehow complete ourselves before entering relationships. Heal your wounds, resolve your childhood, become confident, learn your boundaries, love your body, find yourself - and then find somebody else.

But people aren't finished projects. We enter relationships carrying histories, insecurities, sensitivities and experiences that have shaped us. So does the person sitting opposite us. Healthy relationships aren't necessarily created by two perfectly secure people who have completed all their inner work. They're often created by two imperfect people who can gradually become safer with one another.

That still requires responsibility. It means noticing when old experiences are influencing the present, communicating rather than expecting somebody to read our minds, respecting boundaries and being willing to repair things when we get them wrong. Loving somebody doesn't mean asking them to carry everything we struggle to carry ourselves.

But none of that requires us to love every part of ourselves before someone else is allowed to love us.

Perhaps self-love and romantic love don't need to be placed in a particular order at all. Sometimes feeling more secure in ourselves helps us choose healthier relationships. Sometimes a healthy relationship helps us become more secure in ourselves. Often, both things happen at the same time.

We learn something about ourselves through loving another person, and we learn something through being loved by them. We learn through setting boundaries, surviving disappointment, experiencing acceptance, navigating conflict and discovering that relationships can repair. Sometimes another person even holds a kinder view of us than the one we've been carrying for years - and gradually, we may begin to believe some of it ourselves.

So no, you don't have to love yourself completely before you can love someone else. And you certainly don't have to love yourself perfectly before you are worthy of being loved.

Perhaps the healthier message is that we can learn to love ourselves while loving other people - and sometimes, partly because they have shown us that we were lovable all along.

References

Arriaga, X. B., Kumashiro, M., Simpson, J. A., & Overall, N. C. (2018). Revising working models across time: Relationship situations that enhance attachment security. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 22(1), 71–96.

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. Basic Books.

Erol, R. Y., & Orth, U. (2014). Development of self-esteem and relationship satisfaction in couples: Two longitudinal studies. Developmental Psychology, 50(9), 2291–2303.

Reis, H. T., Clark, M. S., & Holmes, J. G. (2004). Perceived partner responsiveness as an organizing construct in the study of intimacy and closeness. In D. J. Mashek & A. Aron (Eds.), Handbook of Closeness and Intimacy. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.