Do you love someone or are you dependent?
This is a topic of discussion that comes up quite often. First of all, I want to begin by saying that I think that you can't love someone else if you don't love yourself, because that means that to some extent you haven't accepted who you are. Or, you haven't accepted some flaws you may have.
Hear me out.
How can you love someone else and accept them when you don't know how to do it? I often hear that one does not love oneself but loves his/her partner madly. That sounds more like dependency to me.
What I mean to say is, on the days that you don't succeed at everything, when you don't handle a situation well, when you make mistakes that you could have avoided, do you still love yourself? Or do you get too angry and just "sit back and let it pass"? How do you bring yourself back and forgive yourself? Which actions show that you care? Do you tell yourself phrases like "it doesn't matter", "you did enough today", "you did it", "you'll try again tomorrow", "everything is fine"? etc. How do you support yourself? How will you support your partner?
It takes work because it takes work with our own selves, and that's why I think that it's different from being dependent on someone. Avoiding yourself ultimately takes a toll on your relationships.
And finally, if we assume that we are not able to love because we have failed in loving ourselves, then are we willing to do something to change that? This makes me wonder if we have created an illusion of what love really is and what we expect from a partner. Perhaps we have. Do you tolerate you? Do you value yourself? Would you spend time with someone like yourself? Would you choose you as your partner?
If the answer is "no", for whatever reason you believe you don't deserve love, then why don't you change it? You need love like everyone else. But do you believe you deserve it like everyone else? Or do you just need it? Are you ready to be loved by you?
The truth is that it takes work and perseverance. If you don't do it for you, you're not going to do it for someone else. Or at least that's my opinion. You just don't know how. Self-love is not limited to admiration. That's narcissism. Self-love is compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, effort, persistence, trust... In essence, it is everything you are asking from a partner.
Ultimately, I think that there's a difference in feeling that we "need" someone vs loving someone because we just love them as they are. The first seems more like dependency to me because if you don't love yourself, you will never be able to love meaningfully, completely and endlessly, and you will never feel loved by someone else. At the end of the day, it's good to remember that you can't give what you don't have.
-Zoe Shields