In many people’s lives, self-esteem is opposed to love.
Some people say, in order to love, you must put down self-esteem;
Love must be sacrificed for pride.
A Is there really an irreconcilable contradiction between love and dignity?
Is it so hard to find the right balance?
Juanzi: “FOR love, I almost have no self-esteem!”
High SCHOOL WHEN a FRIEND BEAUTIFUL CHILD, LATE NIGHT CALL TO ME CRY, SAY: “FOR LOVE, I ALMOST HAVE NO SELF-ESTEEM!”
I asked her what was going on, but in the middle of the conversation, she burst into tears. It took five minutes for her crying to subside.
Later, from her intermittent complaint, she stopped studying after graduating from high school and met a young man who was relatively poor at that time. I thought he was a good character and had great ambition, so I decided to spend the rest of my life with him.
Even ran away with him against his parents’ orders.
The young man finally lived up to her expectations, not only in the career is quite successful, but also became the local richest man.
Who knows, SINCE the young man after the synthesizer, often borrow work for late night, and her time together is less and less, and from time to time there are rumors of his love.
She started by crying and screaming, which led to worse relations.
Consciously hard not, to soft, play “self-harm, self-abuse”, in the hope of changing back to the other side’s attention, the result still failed to achieve, the other side even said: “See you bored!”
To Juanzi, I began by expressing my sympathy for her misfortune.
Later, I told her a story: There was a couple who met in college and fell in love with each other until they got married and had children. They stayed together, during which the husband rose up in the political career, from ordinary people all the way to the head of state.
Not to be outdone, the wife not only keeps pace with The Times in her appearance, but also in her career at all times for her husband.
However, just when it seemed that the reward was due, the husband’s sex scandal swept across the country and the world.
In an instant, all her dignity was trampled to the ground.
And yet, in the face of it all, no one saw her face distorted by anger, no one saw her eyes clouded by sadness.
‘I still love him!
“She said firmly to the world.
Far from discrediting her for her fortitude and calm, the charm she unleashed from the episode has only increased her popularity.
However, she didn’t stop there.
When her husband retired from politics, she did not follow him into retirement. Instead, she continued to work hard for her life’s ideals.
The only difference in marriage is that she is in front of the stage and her husband is behind the scenes.
“I know who you’re talking about, isn’t she Hillary Clinton, the former First lady of the United States?”
Beautiful son listen to my story, a little disdain to say.
Sobs still came from time to time through the phone.
“Do you know what love is?”
I asked her suddenly.
“Love?
— “Her voice rose suddenly, with a note of puzzlement in it.
“To put it simply, love is a ‘consensual feeling’, that is to say, love is based on mutual admiration and mutual appreciation.
Do you subscribe to that statement?”
“Well!”
She answered softly, as if reluctantly.
“What do you think your husband appreciates about you now?”
“I don’t dislike his original poor, regardless of family opposition to marry him, for his children, husband and children, this is not enough?”
She was a little angry.
“I’m sure you gave a lot, but don’t forget that’s all in the past.”
I reminded her.
“If your husband were the same man, would you still love him?”
I asked further.
“……”
For a moment she was speechless.
“In love, both men and women have expectations and demands of the other, as you do to your husband and he will do to you.
What you expect of him, he has achieved and is moving forward, and what he expects of you, you are not only unaware of, even opposite.
You are making a scene and hurting yourself, which is not only unacceptable to your heart, but also undesirable to your husband.
And you hope to restore his love to you. Do you think it possible?”
“……”
She was silent again, as if touched.
“As the saying goes, a brave man never speaks of his past. One cannot always base one’s pride on past events.
If you want to let yourself always get the attention and appreciation of others, you need to make unremitting efforts to enrich yourself and update yourself.
In this, Mrs Clinton has.
And how about you?
Come back to it, did you lose your pride because of love, or did you lose love because of pride, or neither?”
I left a series of rhetorical questions to Juanzi, then closed the line.
${FDPageBreak} Fei Yong: “Am I a man or not?”
That afternoon, a light rain fell in the sky.
Perhaps because of the weather, the large waiting room was empty, with few patients.
I was clearing my desk for the night when a man in his early thirties burst into my consulting room.
I saw that he was carrying bags and bags, and his face was tired, and there was a certain melancholy between his closed brows.
“Going on a trip, with all this luggage?”
I asked jokingly.
“I’m running away from home and I never want to go back to that house. I’ve had enough!”
Suddenly he burst out, holding his head in his arms and uttering a voice of suppressed grief.
‘Are you better now?
“I asked softly as I waited for him to calm down a bit and offered him a tissue.
He nodded and gratefully took the tissue. “My name is Fei Yong. I met my wife five years ago.
She is two years older than me in age;
In terms of educational background, she graduated with a master’s degree, one level higher than me as an undergraduate.
In terms of family wealth, her family is much richer than mine.
Therefore, when getting married, some people said that I was very good at marrying a wife, and some people said that I would be a ‘soft food’ man.
I didn’t care. I laughed at myself and said that people were jealous of me.
But after marriage…”
Fei Yong clears his head and tells his story: “She pretty much calls the shots in the house.
From the very beginning, she said to buy a house near her work place. I said it was too expensive, but she said it didn’t matter if it was too expensive, and her family was willing to subsidize it.
Home to buy air conditioning, she insisted on buying a brand, said the brand energy saving, wind natural, and good after-sales service;
Children go to school, she said to give him a famous school, also said that no matter how poor can not poor children’s education.
Besides, she always told me to learn more and get more diploma.
Even in the couple life, she almost always took the initiative.
What’s more, she…”
Fei Yong grew angry as he spoke.
“It all makes you feel like you have no place in the family, doesn’t it?”
I asked with concern.
“I am a man, but in my heart, I ask myself many times whether I am a man or not!”
Fei Yong was a little excited.
“Do you think she has a point?”
“In hindsight, she was right about a lot of things.”
Fei Yong is silent for a moment, as if choosing a difficult answer.
“It’s just that, personally, you feel your pride has been hurt, right?”
‘Perhaps!
Fiyong’s tone softened a bit.
“In terms of traditional values, society expects the male to be the dominant female in the family.
By choosing to marry a girl with a higher education and economic status than you in the first place, you are challenging the conventional wisdom, right?”
“……”
Fei Yong nodded without a word.
“What you have just said is a continuation of this challenge, but it has lasted longer than you thought it would, so that you find it unbearable.
Do you think so?”
“Alas!
Fei Yong was silent and let out a sigh of frustration.
“The famous psychologist Rogers has a formula for self-esteem: self-esteem = achievement ¡Â ambition, that is, the higher a person’s achievement and the lower their ambition level, the higher their self-esteem level.
According to this formula, you have two choices: one is to lower your expectations or ambitions for yourself, leave everything large and small in the hands of your wife, and be comfortable with being a ‘little man’;
The second is to work hard, try to make themselves strong, strive for the initiative in the family, to be a social expectations of the ‘man’.
Clearly, from your appointment today, you’re not comfortable with the first option.
What do you think?”
“Isn’t there a third option?
Fei Yong looked hesitant.
“A lot of people have asked me that.
Because the second option requires a lot of effort, no one wants to do it or thinks they are not capable of doing it.
Some people want to achieve a high level of self-esteem and social acceptance without having to put in the effort.
In fact, there is no such option.
When self-esteem is depressed, many people tend to blame others, thereby lowering the level of ambition of others to raise their own self-esteem, but often forget the construction of self-achievement.
This way of maintaining self-esteem is equivalent to lying to oneself because it is divorced from society’s universal expectations of the individual.
What is more, it is unacceptable for society to abuse and beat their wives to satisfy their self-esteem in disguise.”
“I certainly wouldn’t do such a thing.”
Fei Yong quickly explained, lest I misunderstand.
“But one thing is for sure, your running away means you are running away.
You don’t so much run away from love as you run away from pressure on your self-esteem, do you think?”
‘Perhaps!
This time, Fei Yong was more calm.
“In fact, is not only self-esteem, love consolidation and maintenance, do not need years of unremitting painstaking management and construction?
And this process requires not only your intelligence, but also your will.”
I added further.
“Oh!
…”
Fei Yong seemed to have an understanding.
Postscript: Self-esteem and love is a pair of twin brothers, regardless of you and me.
People can’t imagine what a love without self-esteem would be like.
Wish every couple, every couple, can cherish your love, more attentively to build your self-esteem.
