Who is responsible for raising self esteem?

[duckme]

If someone has low self esteem, who ultimately can help improve it? Is it the responsibility of everyone around a person or is it something only that person can resolve?

You can only improve your self esteem by yourself. The people around you need to be supportive but the other person's self esteem isn't their responsibility. ..

Why do you ask,op?

“Responsible” is a weird word to use. Who can help is a totally different question to who is responsible.

the person.

No-one is responsible for another adult’s self esteem. The individual has to decide to remove people who have a damaging impact on their self esteem from their life. Or at least curtail their power to affect them.

Self esteem is like a muscle. You can't outsource its development to anyone else. You've got to do those crunches yourself.

Very unhealthy for your self esteem to be reliant on a partner. The person needs to get their self esteem to a "normal" level then if they are lucky then they may find a partner who raisss their self esteem to a "high" level,

@TransplantMyPersonality
I ask because a friend of my other half
has low self esteem and at the minute it is affecting his friendship with not only my other half, but other people too. My dh is the very last person to purposefully upset, isolate or hurt anyone, but at the minute I feel he is being held unfairly responsible for how his friend is feeling and is expected to apologise. I personally don't think he should apologise and I'm usually the first to back down to avoid bad feeling.

What had your husband actually done?

@PurpleDaisies
Yes, you are right. It was a poor choice of word. Who can help, is a much better way of phrasing it.

He'd gone out with another (mutual) friend. The other friend was already going out and someone dropped out leaving one extra ticket. My husband was asked to go, the day before the event, and it has caused bad feeling.
My initial response was guilt, after I received at text at midnight asking what was going on, but I have found myself to be getting more and more annoyed by the continued hard feeling. My feeling now is that two grown men can decide who they wan to go out with without having to seek permission.
However I don't want to get into this with the friend as I had been told he suffers from low self esteem and therefore I wondered if it was up to my husband to help raise his self esteem or is this something the friend only can do?

Agree that no one can "give " another person self esteem but it's not as easy as saying people need to raise their own....cut people out who have a negative effect etc. If they could do that, they wouldn't have low self esteem in the first place!

Your post is a bit confusing OP. If this about your DH's friend, how are you involved, and getting texts?

So your dh, got invited to something last minute. The friend, with low self esteem is now hurt?

Honestly, I think alot of people use 'I have low self esteem' to try and control others around them.

Your husband shouldn't feel he has to disclose all his comings and goings and seek permission from anyone, least of all his friend.

There are lot of factors that contribute to low self esteem. The final responsibility for improving it rest on the person who wants to improve their own self esteem. But please don't underestimate how much other people can influence ones self esteem.

In dh freind case the freind may have other reasons to end the friendship. It might be the straw that broke the camel's back. The freind has every right to feel disappointed/ hurt for being left out of an activity. How often does this happen? Why are you even involved? It is up to your dh and freind to either drop him or reassure him. Its as simple as that. Is this other freind part of the friendship group or not?

I'm involved because we're all part of the friendship group, his wife text me originally.
By husband and his friend went to the cinema about 3 years ago. That was the last time they went out on their own. The other friend works a lot of Saturday nights and when he isn't at work, he's on call a lot. So when the ticket became available and had to be filled quickly, the other friend asked my husband as he was more likely to be available.
They absolutely want him in the friendship group. However since this happened last week, the friend has removed himself from all WhatsApp groups and has decided not to take part in a group activity we had planned as he has not received an apology (which I am not convinced is owing).

The other friend is just plain weird. If there was only one spare ticket then only one person could go. Why is it your DH fault that his friend asked him and not the other guy? People are so strange.

Surely someone with low self esteem would be more likely to keep their hurt and upset to themselves and be mortified if anyone found out.

I agree with PP this sounds more like control.
Blocking everyone and demanding an apology too. Is that the first time they’ve done that, or is it part of a regular pattern? That would affect how I responded.

I thought this too. I looked on ways of helping with self esteem before I posted on here originally and, honestly, not much of what I read seemed to tally with the person and my interactions with him. However I figured you don't know what people are like in their own homes. If it was me and I was upset, I would moan to my husband and then move on, I would never mention it and never react this way, but then again I am a complete wuss and hate all confrontation. I would put myself out rather than making a scene or other people uncomfortable. Reading online it seems more likely that I have lower self esteem

I think your DH’s ‘friend’ sounds like a manipulative twat and needs to get over himself

Well self-esteem itself is contributed by how people are raised by parents etc...but as adults, it really is down to the individual to work on their self-esteem. I've found this out the hard way over the years, but the grounding I had as a child didn't help. Having support from those close to you helps with assisting you in the work to raise your self-esteem, but it isn't anybody else's responsibility.

This man has weaponised his low self esteem, essentially using his anxiety as a stick to beat others with to assume control over people and/ or situations.

You can be depressed, anxious etc and still be manipulative to the point of abusive.

Yourself as everyone else is unpredictable. Counselling can help give you pointers on how to raise it if it's really low.

I think these replies are a bit harsh, is this the whole story? Seems odd.