If you are at war with yourself, it is very hard to feel safe with someone else.
No amount of praise can land.
Every small conflict confirms the story that you are not enough.
The old pattern is to make the relationship responsible for fixing your sense of worth.
You chase reassurance.
You panic when it is not there.
You read every silence as proof that you are failing.
Self love in a relationship is not about never needing anything.
It is a quiet agreement with yourself.
I am on my own side.
I will not speak to myself like an enemy.
I will listen to my body and my limits.
When you treat your own inner world with even a little more kindness, something opens.
You are less likely to attack or cling when you feel scared.
You can receive love as a gift, not as emergency medicine.
Love, here, is letting the care you offer each other land on ground that is not constantly collapsing.