I would like to suggest that there is an inverse
relationship between having an inflated self-esteem and our relationships.
Consequently, as we grow in self-esteem, our relationships suffer. This idea
might be hard for you to swallow, because you have met many who feel so badly
about themselves that they shy away from relationships or whither before them.
However, I am not talking about how you feel about yourself but how you think
about yourself. Have you learned to trust in yourself – your goodness,
superiority, entitlement – by elevating the way you regard yourself? Have you learned that by elevating your
self-esteem you can feel better about yourself and present yourself with more
confidence? If so, I’d like to suggest that your marriage is in greater
jeopardy than the marriage of the person who doesn’t have an elevated belief in
who they are.
Just to give you one small indication of this
counter-intuitive proposal – I live in NYC, just across the East River from
Manhattan, where high self-esteem is booming but where relationships might be
most problematic. A quick glance at the internet revealed:
·
New York County (better known as Manhattan) was
at the top of the list, with a per-capita divorce rate of 8.15, or more than
twice the [New York] statewide average of 2.99. No. 2 was Jefferson County,
with a per-capita rate of 5.16.
For the most part, those who live in Manhattan have to be
financially successful. Why? Living in Manhattan is costly. Besides, I have
gone to many discussion groups in Manhattan, generally attended by people who
are highly articulate, successful, and have a high enough opinion of themselves
and their conversational gifting to brave these competitive waters. However,
during the years I’ve attended these groups, I can remember only encountering
one couple.
Why? For one thing, Manhattan attracts upwardly mobile
singles, who are far more likely to shack-up in this progressive town than to
marry. Nevertheless, divorce is booming.
Here’s my theory. I used to feel very bad about myself. To
compensate, I would build up my self-esteem with positive affirmations, and, in
the short-run, it worked. However, as with any lethal addiction, my false high
required increasingly high doses of positive self-trust, feel-good messages.
However, these distorted beliefs alienated me further from myself – my feelings
from my manufactured non-reality-based thinking. As a result, I was living a
schizoid life, in which truth became an endangered species.
In retrospect, I found that my wearing a mask, along with my
inability to dispense with my mask, constituted a death-sentence to all my relationships.
After my many self-affirmation fixes, I couldn’t figure out who-the-heck I was;
nor could anyone else.
Building self-esteem and self-trust is antithetical to
transparency, humility, inner-peace, and relationships, and they come with a
heavy price-tag. For one thing, if we are alienated from ourselves, we are also
alienated from others. If we cannot feel comfortable within ourselves, without
massive infusions of positive self-talk, we will not be able to feel
comfortable with others. If we cannot understand ourselves, we will not be able
to understand others and will fail to relate in a relational manner. Instead,
we relate through veils of our own self-deceptions.
Perhaps most importantly, if we cannot accept ourselves the
way we are with our many weaknesses and failures, we will not be able to accept
others. In my thinking, I had made myself a king. As long as I saw my wife as a
queen, I could accept her. However, once she had fallen, my glowing feelings
about her began to whither, and I could no longer accept her. No surprise – If I
couldn’t accept my own failures, how could I begin to accept the failures of
others?
However, in the process, my self-esteem began to drop, along
with my positive self-talk. As this happened, my wife began to look better, and,
in my humbled condition, I became grateful to have her.
However, being humbled is very painful, and we avoid it at
all costs. Even if this process enables us to see ourselves as we really are,
how are we able to endure it? Certainly not through psychotherapy, aimed at
providing a marketable product, which will hook the client into a nurturing
“relationship,” designed to bring them back to the office again. It tends to
address client needs by trying to patch them back up with more of the same –
self-trust through “positive” interactions and affirmations.
But perhaps we are not designed to trust and to believe in
ourselves but in Another, who can truly take care of our needs without the
monumental costs of self-delusion. I have found that if Jesus loves and accepts
me, I can begin to accept myself and even others with all of their flaws. I
have also found these words to be exactly what I had always sought:
·
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who
did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with
him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31-32)
As a result, God has empowered me to face the truth about
myself and to even laugh about it. I no longer have to exalt myself, because I
have found my Savior to be all that I need.
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