Hopping From One Relationship To The Next A Bad Idea? The Flaws Of Multiple Love

“Many people jump from relationship to relationship. They never take the time to be single and do the inner work. This is a recipe for unhappiness in love. If you don’t do the inner work, you will never truly be fulfilled in relationships.”

INTRO

It’s funny how a relationship can work. People always try to look for their “other half,” but… is your half already full? Are you emotionally & mentally ready for another person after just giving your 100% just recently? Whenever you give something 100%, you usually have to take a break or rest for a bit to recover. Better yet, if you give someone your heart, and they break it… can it be healed that quickly? If it can, well, please let me know the surgeon you go to, because I would like to know how it was possible (I’m kidding, of course… or am I… ?)

Who really wants to be alone, right? About 50% of the world is either in a relationship/marriage. That’s quite a few people. The feeling of being wanted by someone can become an addictive craving. Once you lose that person, in the early stages of the grief, it feels like you have lost a part of yourself. You used to have someone who would message you every day, give you constant attention, provide physical affection and was always there for emotional support.

It’s a hard thing to lose, but it definitely happens—the anticipation of having a message waiting for you on your phone when you unlock it. You start to feel lonely, and your confidence starts to break because the constant attention you receive every day is no longer there. Then you try to look for ways to cope with that quietness…

Let’s look at two key points on why jumping from one relationship to the next is a bad idea.

Self-Worth (Relationship With Your Mind)

Firstly, let’s start with the biggest one, in my opinion… which is self-worth. I think this area is very interesting because it depends on how the relationship was and how it ended. I feel like nowadays, when a relationship ends… it tends to end negatively… So let’s focus on that. 

Usually, when you are in a toxic relationship, you are constantly thinking, “what did I do to deserve this?” or “Why am I in this situation?” When this happens continuously, you start to self-reflect and wonder if this is the norm for a relationship. It’s like a poison that affects your mind. You can’t tell if what’s happening to you is healthy or not. Most people nowadays determine their worth based on approval and validation from others.

Social media is the biggest example where this is displayed. Since this is the case, their opinion of themselves isn’t valued as highly unless they hear it from another source. Our world has determined that your worth is based on likes and views. Attention has become the new drug for people, and it’s very addicting. It is a common theme we see and can’t avoid. This is why we see people perform certain stunts or activities on social platforms. Even when people display controversial or negative material, it also gets views as well. This is for people who strive for attention, and with easy access to social platforms, it becomes very accessible to watch these people perform these actions.

Physical perception has changed over the years and is now becoming more monetized than ever before. You can also say the same with the mentality of life. We have influencers now who want to convince you that their mindset or lifestyle is the way to go. We are starting to have terms like “Alpha Male” or “Sigma Woman” they want to brand and make it your lifestyle. When we see these types of people and see the money in all their “success,” we start to idolize who they are and believe their lifestyle is healthy and suitable for us. Does this really teach us self-worth? How can we learn our true self-identity if we live someone else’s life?

Many of these influencers, over time, actually don’t even live the life they preach to their audience. They get exposed daily. These influencers tend to teach us that relationships are one-sided as well, to only think about yourself and protect yourself. We know that relationships work both ways and are a partnership that can last a lifetime. So why be selfish in this situation? When you do this, you are self-sabotaging the relationship. When you lose the partner of your dreams, you will start to blame your partner first and, over time, come to a realization that there is no benefit in being selfish in a relationship.

So let’s think about this, how can we determine our self-worth if we keep hopping from one bad relationship to the next? If you constantly get treated poorly in every relationship you get into? Is it your fault? Well… partially…. It’s not intentional; unless you want to be in toxic relationships, then I have to say this post is not for you. The issue with self-worth is the lack of self-validation, and I’ll talk about this later as I skip to my second point.

Self-Love (Relationship With Yourself)

Ah, my second main topic… Self Love. So people probably believe that self-worth and self-love mean the same thing. You would think so, but hear me out… I’m actually going to tackle one of the love languages, the one I’m talking about is receiving gifts. We see people buy each other gifts or spend money on themselves, saying they are “worth this gift,” so now, going forward, they feel like anything less than this luxurious gift is not high enough… So the gift through their eyes shows them their worth.

However, with love… love is invaluable… There’s no value in love. No money in this world should be able to buy your love. We tend to search for love from other people, but the thing is that how can you find love from someone else when you do not love yourself? That’s like giving someone pieces to a puzzle that you don’t even know if they all fit. 

This is why self-love is very important. As I said earlier, we tend to search for love through other people before we love ourselves. We have this tendency to think too little of ourselves or not that high. So falling in love with someone else before yourself is merely a compensation for inner emptiness and loneliness. For this same reason, most relationships fail. You invest all your feelings into someone, thinking they will always want what’s best for you. Unfortunately, that is not the case for the majority these days.

Depending on your background, your upbringing also plays a big part in it. The relationship between a child and their parents also helps with the selection process of your potential partner. When we are babies, we look to our parents’ actions and reactions to certain situations. They are our first teachers and moral compass since they are the only people we witness. When my nephew was younger, I used to say shut up around him (by accident, of course) quite a bit. Eventually, one of the first words he ever said was shut up. Thank god it wasn’t his first word because my sister definitely would have killed me. Since he was young, he didn’t understand at the time what it meant. He would just laugh whenever he said it.

Even I am a victim of this, heading through my own experience. The relationship I had with my mother and father was pretty distant and not as warm. Growing up, I would look at my friend’s parents and see how they interacted with each other and the amount of love invested by their parents into my friends. Not having that type of bond, trust, or even relationship with my parents took its toll on me in the future.

Yeah, my father was in my life a bit, but I personally felt that I followed what my brother did rather than my dad. I looked to him for advice about life, money and relationships as well. The strained relationship I had with my mother also affected my love life. Having that absence of motherly love made me want to look for it in my relationship subconsciously. Since I never truly experienced it, I would try and look for that type of love in a woman I would want to be in a relationship with. I was searching for a kind of love that I haven’t fully understood. So how can I look for that type of love when I haven’t experienced it myself. I wouldn’t know what tendencies to look for.

To understand what you are looking for in your partner, you need to understand yourself and what you need (realize I didn’t say want). This is why self-love becomes very important. Loving yourself or even knowing the concept of genuine love can help when it comes to searching for potential partners. You start to raise a certain standard for yourself on how you want to be approached and treated.

When you start taking care of yourself spiritually, physically and mentally, your perception of love and needs also starts to change. The toleration you’d endured previously is something you wouldn’t want to go through again. When you keep hopping from one relationship to the next within a short span of time, it is harder to reflect on the type of relationship you need because you never gave yourself the healthy space to think about the proper affection you need to sustain the right type of kinship.

CONCLUSION

“Perhaps the biggest mistake I made in the past was that I believed love was about finding the right person. In reality, love is about becoming the right person. Don’t look for the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. Become the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.” – Neil Strauss

Huh… I was never one for rambling. Well… let me apologize.. I’ll get straight to the point. 

So how do we teach ourselves what our self-worth is or how to self-love? Self-worth comes over time. You’re going to go through experiences (good & bad) that will start to mould your character & mentality. You’ll know what you would tolerate and what you won’t tolerate. Through these experiences, you’ll also start to have a sense of self-value.

Don’t let someone who buys luxurious items all the time confuse you with what your worth is. Yes, they are nice to have, don’t get me wrong. However… if this person doesn’t treat you with respect or care about how you feel, they are using materialistic items as a price tag. They are saying there is a price for your love which to me is one of the most disrespectful things you can do to somebody. 

So how do we combat this? Well… let’s start with self-acceptance. As much as our parents love to say we are perfect, we aren’t. We all have flaws; nobody is perfect. Some of us wish we weighed less, exercised more, read properly, be better at math & the list can go on forever. That’s okay; that is a part of life. We can’t excel at everything, but once you figure out what your flaws and strengths are, you’ll be able to find a partner that can help or be more selective & better at decision-making since you know what you are good and bad at. Be patient with yourself.

Focus on yourself, focus on what you enjoy in life. Discover new hobbies, make new goals, and explore the world. Just like how love is invaluable, so is time. When you invest more time into yourself, people will recognize it. You’ll start to draw out more people who have the same interests as you as well. When you have the awareness of what you enjoy and love, you can communicate that to your partner correctly.