I dont want you to thik that I doubt my own love. I just wanted your opinions. I dont want my partner to think my love isnt real. I couldnt love him anymore, if I loved him more It would kill me. I am bursting with love for him. He is my everything. I think I can still love. It upsets me that people think they can tell me that I cant love just because I have self esteem issues. I can love. I want someone to be on my side.

i have loved deeply and relentlessly, i love my daughter so much, i would give my life for her, yet, i can't stand looking at myself , so no i think you can love, no matter what, it is from god, god gives us love, so we can love, if you beleive, you should pray for a way to accept and love yourself, not a conceited love, but a self love that will help you with your inner pain, that is whay i think, so love on

I think you can love someone else even if you do not love yourself.

I think loving yourself helps you be able to receive love from other people more.

Yeah i agree with Choosing. I think by being able to love yourself it helps in the acceptance of allowing others to love you. There have been/are people in my life I would die for because I lvoe them so much. Yet atm I still feel that if i had 7 billion people in a room all hating me I would still hate myself more than all of the put together

just because you don't/can't love yourself doesn't mean your love is void. people should shut their mouths! (not any of you)...but other people. they've told me the same...

and i, too, don't want my family thinking that the way i feel about them isn't real, because it is! i agree with all that have posted.

it IS possible to love others even when you don't have love for yourself.

I believe we can love others. I loved my husband for years before I accepted who I was and I am not sure if I love myself. I love my children and my grandchildren too. So I guess the answer is yes we can love others.

I am sure you can love another person, or persons and not love yourself. For years I hated the person I was, mostly because I was abused by this foster family and was never shown love. I had to and am still working hard on loving the person I am. I spent a lot of years helping others, having many people in my life that I would care about and the problems. Once I got into therapy I realized i had all of those people and their problems in my life because I was afraid to be with me and deal with the abuse stuff. After years of therapy, I no longer hate the person I was. I have worked hard to change those beliefs, those things said to me that I am nothing, not of value, that I am not lovable. When you are not shown love, how can one feel as tho they are lovable. It is a process to love that inner person. A long and hard process, but it can happen. I am living proof the self love can happen.

I think we can love others.

I did not love me, or even like me very much for a long time. And, when someone acted like they loved me, I simply couldn't believe thay would love me for long, because eventually they would get to really know me, would discover how defective I way, and would run away from the relationship.

Since I was not able to love myself, I felt that anyone who could love me had to be defective too. Along these same lines, I also would find some reason to discount any complements, and to believe anyone who was critical of me.

Today I believe I am good enough to be lovable, that compliments may or may not be honest and valid, and critism may or may not be honest and valid.

I think you can love others even if you're struggling to love oneself...I just think it may be deeper and more complete if you also love yourself....it doesn't matter what others tell you...it's just their opinion. You know you love your partner and that's all that matters.