It is pure bliss when two people in love join in marriage. However, marriage comes with many ups and downs, many challenges, and a lot of obstacles you and your partner need to overcome as a married couple.
The difficulties of marriage have made many couples quit on one another, resulting in countless divorces. Despite these sad facts, many people still desire to marry and maintain their marriages. Many people cite unhappiness and lack of love in a marriage, but it’s really self-love that needs to be improved.
How does self-love help in marriage, and why is it so important? Is it one of the guides to a successful marriage? Come along and see why we think self-love is vital for a successful marriage.
How Do You Define Self-Love?
Many may define self-love as a day at the spa or a date night at your favorite restaurant. Self-love is more than that. Self-love is everything you do to show appreciation and compassion for yourself. It’s all the things you do to make yourself feel better and the fact that you’re satisfied with yourself and your life in general.
In simple words, self-love is the act of taking care of yourself. It means accepting yourself fully as an individual, being kind to yourself, and engaging in nurturing your wellbeing.
Self-conscious people and those who love themselves are kind to themselves, affecting their overall mental health. For instance, someone who practices self-love has a very low risk of depression. Why? When you love yourself, you tend to be less harsh on yourself.
If you make a wrong decision, you may not be too harsh on yourself and may not regret your decision. You may regret the outcome of decisions, but you can accept the outcome quickly and move on with your life.
Self-Love Keeps You Mentally Prepared for Everything
One main reason that causes disappointments and unhappiness in marriages is high expectations. You get into marriage expecting someone to be exactly who they were while dating. Sadly, when you start living together as husband and wife, you get to see their weaknesses and some habits you didn’t notice before. Perhaps you have heard marriage advice revolving around failed marriage expectations.
Someone who is already good at loving themselves will handle issues as they come up in marriage. They are assertive enough about the problem that may arise in their marriage. Self-love also demands that you always make healthy choices.
Self-love prepares you for when you need to decide something in your marriage. Then, you will be ready to make a decision that will benefit both you and your spouse. It also minimizes the chances of a spouse blaming their partners if anything goes wrong.
A spouse who practices self-love will accept the wrong and be mentally ready to correct their mistakes. They are also aware that people are not perfect, so they can find a solution, forgive, and move on if they see a wrong in their relationships.
Challenging oneself is also another character of self-love. If you face any issue in your marriage, you can challenge yourself to make the marriage work despite the setbacks.
Self-Love Teaches You How You Should Be Treated
Many people may advocate for a thriving marriage despite the challenges experienced in marriage. However, a toxic marriage may cause further damage to the people involved. Unfortunately, some people in marriage may not be aware of the toxicity in their marriage, and they may accept the worst done to them for the sake of staying together with their partner.
Self-love teaches you how people should treat you and how you need to treat other people. For example, when you practice self-love, you will identify emotional abuse fast, unlike someone who does not practice loving themselves. In addition, self-love will teach you when you should let it go and when you need to leave a marriage.
Also, when you know how you should be treated, you will pass the same to your partner and treat them the way you would want them to treat you. You will automatically avoid mistreating your spouse.
If your spouse also practices self-love, they will also avoid hurting you, making the marriage a happy and safe place to live in. On the other hand, when you don’t know anything about self-love, you may accept anything done to you, and in the long run, you may suffer low self-esteem.
Self-Love Is Attributed With Peace and Contentment
Self-love allows people to accept who they are and their abilities. So this subsequently brings about peace and contentment. When someone accepts themselves and their abilities, they are content with what they can produce, which gives them peace.
Without self-love, you may find yourself comparing yourself to others, and in this case, you may even compare your marriage to another marriage. Comparison is a setup for failure, and no marriage would thrive if one spouse is constantly comparing their relationship to a relationship they see on a TV show or social media.
On the other hand, self-love teaches you to be content with yourself and what you have. It teaches you that what you see on the outside may be different from what is inside.
Accepting what you have allows you to enjoy it in peace. Comparison causes envy and wanting to have what the picture shows you. Problems may arise when you can’t have what you have desired, thus robbing the peace in your marriage.
Is It Really Effective?
Yes, self-love is effective if both spouses are practicing it. With self-love, spouses can reduce the chances of depressing each other. Self-esteem is enhanced when people practice self-love. It’s a contagious trait, and even one partner practicing self-love will make the second partner want to make themselves better.
With high self-esteem, jealousy and insecurities don’t have a chance in a person. Also, with self-love, couples will avoid treating each other with disrespect and stop abusing each other.
Appreciating what you have is also a character developed when you practice self-love. This translates into spouses enjoying that they are married to each other, and therefore each will work to sustain and keep the fire burning in their marriage.
Practice Self Love
As we have seen, self-love is essential for both an individual and a married couple. Self-love will significantly help enhance your marriage and your overall self. Here are some self-love tips that you can try to make your life better:
- Don’t compare yourself to others
- Spend time with people who support you
- Pursue your goals and interests
- Embrace your mistakes
- Trust yourself
- Process your fears
- Don’t worry about other people’s opinions
- Don’t value yourself according to how your body looks
- Put yourself first
- Embrace all of your emotions
- Always be kind to yourself
- Take care of your health