Learning to Love Myself without You

“But now I know

That the world still turns

And the sun still burns

And that’s what I’ve learned without you

And the days roll on

And my heart gets stronger too

Don’t think I didn’t love you

Just because I made it through

But I learned to love myself

Without you.”

Reba McEntire, Myself Without You

Throughout most of my life I have been a fiercely independent codependent. The only times I ever wavered from being fiercely independent were when I met someone who pushed all of my buttons in all of the right ways; meaning a person who had just the right addictive personality to match mine.

Anytime my addictive “yin” met an addictive “yang,” I’d swing almost immediately from the extreme of being fiercely independent on myself to the opposite extreme of being miserably dependent on that other person. Of course, once we both sucked all of the life out of each other and the relationship ended, I’d go defiantly back to being fiercely independent; even though my heart was still longing for “the One” to make my life complete. I still wanted that person who was going to love me so much that I’d eventually come to love myself. And I certainly never thought I’d ever be able to learn to love myself without that special person.

Even now I struggle between the two extremes of independent-dependent, but I have learned to love myself better by being less independent; meaning, I’ve learned to ask more for what I want and need. And I’ve learned to reach out for new friendships that are interdependent. These new friendships come without expectations and demands on my behalf. They’re about simply enjoying spending time with people and remaining in the NOW of those times. I have also grown to be more comfortable doing things by myself without being miserably lonely.

Sooner or later every codependent needs to be able to say “I learned to love myself without you.” The day we can proclaim those very words with complete honesty is the day that we are ready to be part of a strong love relationship. Why? Because once we learn to love ourselves without the approval or need of another to make us OK is the very day that we have gained sufficient self-esteem, self-worth and self-love. It's the day we become solidly ourselves. It's the day we are mentally and emotionally healthy enough to be in a significant relationship.

On that day, we no longer have a need to be independent or dependent. We will know how to be interdependent. And we will be able to build relationships through mutual interests, respect, honesty and love. We’ll experience joy by being with that special person and we’ll experience joy by being just with ourselves. All of the needy-clingy feelings will be gone. We’ll know longer need that other person’s approval to be OK with ourselves and we won’t feel the need to earn his/her love.

And if the relationship should fall apart, we won’t. Oh sure, we may be sad and have to grieve for a while, but we will bounce back without going to any extremes (like suddenly being fiercely independent again), because we will have learned to love ourselves without the “you” we once thought we needed to be whole.