I Really Don't Know

Everyone says you have to love yourself before you can be in a meaningful, healthy relationship. Ok, got it. But how do you do this? People keep saying “you gotta love yourself first Jenn”, but they don’t follow it up with instructions or examples. I mean that may sound weird, but really how do you go about loving yourself? I like myself. I think I’m a great girl with good qualities, a lot to offer in a relationship. But the cold truth is that I will put up with the dumbest shit from men, and suffer for fear that I won’t find any better. And apparently that’s the big neon sign everyone keeps trying to point me to that says “you don’t love yourself enough”.

Jenn’s dating history 101: Only one “almost boyfriend” when I was 17 followed by a few guys that I just “talked” to. No one stuck around, no one respected me. My future ex-husband came along when I was 19, and was the first “good” guy so we got married. My therapist refers to the relationship as emotionally abusive. What I didn’t understand during my marriage was that emotional abuse and verbal abuse are two different things… which I’m embarrassed to admit now that I didn’t know, and certainly didn’t recognize in my own marriage. I just knew that I felt 20 kinds of crazy after most of my conversations with him, and that everything was always my fault; even when it was logically impossible. Following separation I entered another relationship that lasted only months, and even though it all seemed very different, I was ultimately shit on.

So all of that brings me back to the present. Here I am, almost 32 years old, two beautiful children, a career, a good sense of humor, and a loving family. Yet I feel empty. I think if I were really this prize package that people try to get me to see then the men would be lining up, right?? I mean that’s what makes sense to me. But there aren’t any men; there never really have been. So to me it’s like the proof is in the pudding. No men = I’m not a prize to be won. Shit…then again maybe that’s the girl who doesn’t love herself talking. How do you separate wanting to share your life with a man, and not wrapping your self-worth around finding one?