How to Keep Your Dignity and Know Your Value in Relationships
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Women with dignity know and always remember their own value in relationships no matter what happens. If you want to maintain your dignity in a relationship, it's essential that you show respect for yourself and your partner.
Why is it important to keep your dignity in a relationship?
Keeping dignity in relationships isn't just about pride. There is so much more to it. It’s so essential for me because I know if I keep my own values in mind, I will never allow myself to change for someone else, abandon my principles or self-respect, or allow my boundaries to be violated. This is especially important for overfunctioning love seekers because we tend to put relationships above ourselves and our needs.
A person with dignity will also respect their partner and their boundaries. This is a great start for a healthy relationship.
What are potential problems that can happen if you don’t remember your own value in relationships?
If you are an overfunctioning love seeker, as I used to be, it can be easy to abandon your principles for the sake of maintaining a relationship. Setting boundaries can be hard because your partner usually doesn’t cross your boundaries, but instead he doesn’t meet your needs. Thus setting boundaries becomes a question of setting boundaries with yourself and knowing what your standards are. Ultimately, you need to define what’s acceptable for you to keep investing your emotions and efforts in a relationship.
Otherwise, if you don't maintain your dignity, you simply wind up resentful and losing yourself in a relationship that doesn’t meet your needs with a partner that doesn’t want or know how to love you in the ways you need to be loved. So many women wind up trying to mold their partners to their liking. This simply doesn't allow for deeper intimacy and love to develop.
How can we keep dignity and remember our value in a relationship?
It’s essential that we accept ourselves for who we are and that we don’t think that our needs in relationships are too much.
If you want to keep your dignity, remember these five things:
You need to identify what matters to you in a relationship
When you meet someone, and their values are different, you don’t try to convince this person that they should think like you. You just know what you are after. Most of my clients want regular communication, emotional connection, and a relationship that moves forward. If this is what you want, you are absolutely worth it and you deserve to have it.
Understand how it feels when our needs are met
How do you know that you have that emotional connection you crave? There is a sweet spot of feeling secure and joyful in a relationship. Most overfunctioning love seekers struggle to feel security because they are constantly in an overfunctioning mode of making a relationship work.
This doesn’t allow them to feel their emotions that tell them what doesn’t work for them in a timely manner. When you don't feel your emotions, it's hard to express your needs. When your needs are not met, then it's hard to keep your dignity in a relationship. You may wing up in angry outbursts or compromising too much.
Express your needs to your partner
This will help you identify who cares about the relationship with you. If you don’t express your needs, how will your partner know? Right? You need to remember that your partner isn't a mind reader. You need to cut him some slack. Only when you express your needs can you know if he actually cares about you. This way you allow him to get to know you, which helps you build intimacy.
How you can express your needs:
Know what steps to take if your partner doesn’t meet your needs in a relationship
How do you keep your dignity in a situation where your partner doesn’t meet your needs? This is especially the case when you are dating someone before you are in a committed relationship. Committed relationships are a completely different topic. But, when you are dating someone, pretty quickly, you can know if they are right for you or not. This is the time to implement this step. Are you going to leave the person that doesn’t meet your needs in a relationship after you communicate with them? Will you continue dating other people?
If you don’t take those steps, you need to know why you are staying and accept that your partner will not change. It's not always easy but can you love him and be happy the way he is? That's an important question. If nothing changes for five years, how do you feel about being with this person?
Answering this question will allow you to have insight about your needs and understanding of who your partner is. If you realize that you are the one who doesn't like your partner the way he is, you can let go of trying to change him. This is how you preserve dignity in a relationship that doesn't work for you.
Remembering your value will help you attract quality men that will adore you
Secure empowered love creators always keep their dignity and remember how valuable they are. This allows them to be less fearful, more peaceful, and enjoy relationships with men who are eager to show them love and affection. They simply openly and subconsciously communicate their value to their partners. When you show up like this, you become a magnet for quality men when dating and in a long term relationship, you can enjoy seeing your partner making extra efforts to show you that he cares.
If you don’t know your value, you can’t communicate it to others and you can’t attract men who are seeking quality women. Women who lack self-appreciation, attract insecure men who are not ready for healthy relationships.
Additionally, by doing this for yourself, you show the example to all women and future generations how to value themselves.
Are there any examples of women who don’t value themselves in relationships?
There are so many. This one is quite illustrative. Have you seen Bridesmaids? Great movie. You should if you haven’t.
Annie from this movie is a great example of someone who just simply didn’t know how to appreciate herself and therefore she didn’t know what her boundaries are. One painful scene stayed in my head. When Annie sleeps at Ted’s house at the very beginning of the movie, the next morning he reminded her of the rules against staying over. Then he says to her something like, “This is so awkward. I really want you to leave, but I don’t know how to say it without sounding like a dick.”
Because Annie didn’t value herself, it took her some time to realize that being with this guy was just hurtful and that he is not right for her.
Most of us had some cringeworthy experiences while dating players. Hopefully this pain awakens us to go back to ourselves and define the kind of love we want and deserve. Only then can we recognize who’s worthy of our time and emotional investment.
If you struggle knowing your value and feeling confident when going on a date, I have something special for you. DM me @independentwomenrule on Instagram, and I’ll send you some tips.
Let me know, why do you think women struggle with knowing their value in relationships.
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