Knowing Your Worth

Dealing with relationships can be difficult but as humans, we all share the same desire for happiness. A confirmation of this desire for happiness should be an immediate indicator when it comes to knowing when a relationship is good or bad for you. Meaning, if you are dating someone who makes you unhappy, then you should likely not date them. Alternatively, if someone does make you happy, then that is a good omen for your relationship. However, humans are complicated creatures, and it's never that simple.The most important thing to keep in mind when evaluating your relationship is that you come first. You cannot realistically have a healthy relationship with someone if you are not putting your own self first. So what does that even mean? It means you need to regularly stop and think about how you feel and why you feel that way. Translate your feelings into thoughts and then deal with them accordingly. If you do not give yourself the time to process these emotions in a thorough manner you are simply bottling them, and when you bottle your emotions you are trapping yourself.

Feeling trapped in a relationship can make things feel as though you have no freedom and will instill a feeling of worthlessness (on some level), which is why you need to communicate with your partner. The biggest part of knowing your worth is being able to establish your worth to other people. Being able to tell others that you will not take part in something that you are not comfortable with, for example, puts yourself first and establishes to others that you are putting yourself first.

Knowing your worth is about drawing lines and holding standards to which you use as guidelines when forming relationships. The golden rule for many years has been treating others the way you want to be treated, however for people such as myself, that simply isn't good enough. The reason for this is that myself and many other people do not generally see themselves as worthy of being treated to a high degree, but we treat others highly because that is the kind of person we are.

If you are this type of person then I have a new rule, be treated the way you treat others. That is to say, your standards of how you are to be treated should be equal to how would want them to be treated. This means that if you love someone and you want nothing but the best for them, then they should also want nothing but the best for you because if they don't you are setting yourself up to be hurt and disappointed. It seems simple enough, but it is a very important rule that many people miss.

For example, you may want to treat your partner to dinners by paying for their meal because that it a kind thing that you would like to do for them. If your partner, however, would never attempt such a gesture, then you are setting yourself up in a position where you are degrading your own worth. That is not to say they you are being degraded because they don't offer to pay for your meals, but any kind of gesture or attempt at showing your partner that you value them and their time.

Furthermore, if you see your partner do something or does something that you don't like, it is ok to be able to say that you would not do that in a relationship due to your own standards, and as such you do not expect that from your partner. Most people can agree with this point when it comes to cheating, but it can even extend to smaller things such as having something you said being ignored or dismissed, being spoken to in a negative tone, doing something that may upset your partner without informing your partner about it, or informing your partner that you want to do something and find out they may get upset about and do it anyway.

In all these situations it is ok to draw the line and tell your partner why these things upset you once you have taken the time to evaluate why you feel the way you do. Communication is the most important aspect of forming strong and healthy relationships. Every time you successfully communicate these feelings to your partner so that they understand how you feel, you are making your relationship stronger. They will begin to know you better and respect your worth. Not only will you begin to know and respect your worth, but so will your partner, and then you can begin to know and respect each other.

Of course, having gone through all these points you may be wondering what if it doesn't work? What if you are failing to communicate these feelings and thoughts to your partner? Then it is likely that you and your partner are not compatible. If you and your partner frequently disagree whenever these issues arise and cannot move past them then it should be a clear indication that you and your partner simply do not share the same values, and therefore are simply incompatible. If neither of you is willing to understand each other's values and do not try to assimilate them, the relationship will become dysfunctional.

So what if that's the case? It's ok. Not everyone was destined to be Romeo and Juliet where you're both willing to kill yourselves for each other. Sometimes relationships just don't pan out the way you wanted or expected them to, but it's better to figure that out sooner than later. In the end, you'd both be doing each other a favour, looking for someone else who will know your worth. And it goes without saying, as someone who wants their worth to be respected, you should also be respectful of your partners.