Lack of Confidence and Self Esteem

[ellaalana]

I have always lacked confidence from a very early age. This all stemmed from my dad putting me down all the time. I carried this through to late teenage but then seemed to gain some confidence by going out with friends etc.. I never had any trouble getting boyfriends and have had 7 in my 34 years with 3 long term relationships. My last relationship was 5 years and resulted in a 7 year old daughter. This relationship ended when he cheated on me. It wasn't long after this relationship ended that I met my current partner of 3 and a half years. We have just had a 3 month old daughter. Our relationship is rubbish at the moment and we have always had issues from the very start. In hinesight we met too quickly after my last relationship ended but you can't help who you fall in love with and when. I brought baggage into this relationship due to the cheating and have terible problems trusting. I do not have any confidence and although I am told constantly by friends and my partner that I am attractive, I do not see what they see. I do not believe them. I look in the mirror and see someone completely different. I am a clingy, posessive girlfriend and I do not trust my partner. If I see him looking at or talking to an attractive girl I am filled with jealously and hate and I have a go at him. He says he will never cheat on me because he is happy with me and our daughters, but I do not believe him. He said if he ever did leave me it would not be because he has cheated, it would be because I have pushed him away. I started dance classes just before Xmas because he said I needed to get out more and will continue with these now xmas is over. I must admit I have gained some confidence from these classes and also getting my body back after giving birth. I just cannot feel attractive and I cannot trust my boyfriend. This causes arguements which came to a head over xmas but I want to work things out. Please help.

My boyfriends friends all say to him I am fit and that when we first got together they all told him that I was way out of his league!!! Unfortunately I don't see this when I look in the mirror. I see other girls when we are out and I hate myself because I don't look like them.

tbh you sound a bit post-natal

have you spoken to Dr or HV about your feelings?

This isn't post-natal. I have felt like this for a long long time.
The problems I had in my relationship with my eldest daughters dad stemmed from self esteem and confidence. He eventually went and cheated probably down to me to be honest, but now his cheating has snowballed into this current relationship. I want to be happy with myself and I want to trust my boyfriend so that when he goes to footy, or out with the lads I don't think he is going to meet another woman. My eldest daughter is starting to pick up on my self esteem issues and has started showing signs of lack of confidence i.e not liking certain clothes, worrying about things etc.. I don't want her to be like me.

I recommend you read a book called @The Road Less Travelled', it is not specifically about building self esteem and confidence, but it does talk about how to have a healthy relationship with life.

You need to find some way of learning to like yourself more and then learning to love yourself, because if you love yourself you don't pout yourself down.

You need to learn to leave the past behind and stop worrying about the future, just live in the present more and enjoy it.

Yes your boyfriend might cheat on you like the other one did, but he just as equally might not, so why worry about it and allow it to push ypu apart?

Does worrying about him cheating on you stop him possibly cheating? No, so try not to, or you will push him away.

I know it is hard, but these are your issues that you need to work through, don;t let them effect your current relationship so much.

Is there any way you can get some councelling? CBT? Psychotherapy?

Start by making a list of all the things you like about yourself, all the achievements, all the positive ualities, all your good points, everything you are proud of about yourself, and when you find yourself putting yourself down reach for that list, read through it, and put yourself UP instead.

You need to love yourself to be a positive role model for your daughter.

I know what you mean - I was abused as a child and I have no self esteem at all. If my husband says something nice I can tolerate it, but mostly disbelieve it. A friend saying something positive about me can literally have me run away or unable to continue the conversation. I am finding therapy very helpful. I am learning to be who I am, to trust in myself, to learn that I don't stop existing if someone abandons or fails me because I can rely on myself. it is hard work but so worth it. You need to tackle it and it is good that you have already started, but you may need to look a little deeper to solve things.

One of the things I was taught to do in CBT was to challenge negative thoughts about myself and it helped a lot, although it does take a bit of practice.

For example if I thought 'I'm a ugly fat pig' I'd have to stop and challenge that by thinking something like 'well, okay yes, you might have put on a bit of weight, but come off it, you're not exactly ugly, in fact, you've got a lovely smile' and so on. Or 'I can't believe I just did that, I'm so stupid, people must think I'm ridiculous' I'd stop and think 'okay, I made a mistake, that's okay I'm allowed to make a mistake, it doesn't mean I'm stupid, after all, I did this good thing or that good thing' Is any of this making sense?

It takes a while but it's really helpful if you can challenge the negative thoughts you have about yourself like this because eventually your self esteem does start to improve.

I'm not sure I could have done it on my own though, could you perhaps speak to your GP about organising some CBT, I think most surgeries are able to offer it now and it's the most useful thing I've ever done.

Try not to be so hard on yourself Ella, you sound lovely and I'm sure you've got a whole load of wonderful qualities that it's all to easy to dismiss when you're feeling so down on yourself.

Take care.