Weekly:Andrew

I reached out to a close GUY friend recently and had him touch on self love, a mans ego, and relationships. His name is Andrew Martin. My blog has plenty of feminine perspectives and advice so, I really appreciated him opening up to me. I genuinely love this piece of writing and it is so insightful. It was awesome to have one of my best guy friends wholeheartedly open up to me because I know it is not always easy to do so. I admire his courage, I know it took a lot. Thanks Andrew!!

Self-love is one of the most important things an individual should focus on. If someone doesn’t love themselves first, it is nearly impossible for them to maintain a long-term relationship with another person. As someone who struggles with self-love and confidence, it is truly an every day battle. My confidence levels influence how I act, speak, and present myself to people. Self-love is tricky because even some of the strongest people you know are struggling on the inside. People struggling often isolate themselves or hide behind a wall of jokes. Even little things like making eye contact can be difficult for someone fighting with self-love. Turning to drugs or alcohol to try and gain that self-confidence is only a temporary solution to a permanent problem. While it helps at the time, real change must come from within someone’s heart. Opening to close friends or family and talking to them about how you feel is a very important step to begin healing. Personally, when I shared how I was feeling with a close friend, I felt like I had support and that someone really cared about me and how I was doing. Reaching out and not bottling up how you feel is crucial.

One thing I struggle with is a feeling of inadequacy in a relationship, but mentioning these feelings or how you struggle with self-love to your partner is wise because your partner will reassure you that you’re not worthless and people really do depend on you. In a relationship, self-love is as important and as caring for your partner. Someone doesn’t have to completely love themselves to maintain a relationship, but it sure does help. In a man’s eyes, being in a relationship and making sure your partner feels loved and appreciated is a source of pride. I struggle being single because I have a hard time giving my full attention to more than one person. I pride myself on staying devoted to one partner and it definitely fuels my ego when I know that I’m making another person on this planet happy even when I’m not happy with myself. Communication is essential to growing yourself and a relationship. You’re never alone and your friends and family really do care about you and truly want to help. Feelings of inadequacy or difficulty believing in or loving yourself should never be internalized.

I recently had a relationship fail because I stopped communicating with my partner due to my internal emotions. I stopped caring about myself and that unfortunately carried over to my relationship. When the break up was fresh, I felt like was “free” again and that I was happy. I couldn’t have been more wrong. That’s the stereotypical reaction a man usually has following a break up. A man’s ego will tell him that everything that happened was completely on their partner and they were miserable for the whole relationship. This way of thinking will only lead to a false sense of confidence. You may think you’re ready to get back out there and meet people when in reality you’re just trying to skip the mourning of your relationship and pretend you’re a different person. I fell into this trap and thought I truly did feel better for about a week before acknowledging that I was still broken inside. I had the sudden realization that it would be impossible to meet someone and wholeheartedly commit to another relationship until I fixed myself or at least recognized my flaws. My self-love and confidence weren’t just magically restored after becoming single. I didn’t begin to heal until I reached out to a close friend and shared my feelings. I realize now that if I had just communicated my feelings to my partner that I would have more than likely been able to salvage the relationship and be a much stronger boyfriend than I ever was.