I have been going to therapy off and on for years and whenever I bring up my desire to date and my difficulties with it I have gotten back to just work on myself and online I have seen “if you aren’t happy alone you won’t be happy in a relationship”. I have major depression and have had it for years. Am I supposed to just hope it goes away? Wait until my entire life has passed?
There’s nuance to the idea that you need to love yourself before loving someone else.
At its core, it means this: Nobody is responsible for your happiness but you.
When someone lacks self-love and enters a relationship, they often rely on their partner as their source of self-worth. This isn’t just unfair—it’s unsustainable and often leads to heartbreak.
To put it another way, you need to fill your own cup. You can’t walk around empty, expecting someone else to keep pouring into you indefinitely. That’s not their job, and trying to take it on is exhausting, leading to burnout and relationship failure.
The truth is, you have to learn how to be happy alone. A relationship isn’t about making each other happy; it’s about supporting and loving one another in a way that fosters self-love, allowing both people to grow into their fullest potential.
Well fucking said! I’ve been there and it was rough.
So that rules out people with depression?
As someone who had a partner with chronic depression for 8 years, it doesn’t rule you out, but here’s the thing: you can’t go into a relationship expecting it (or your partner) to solve your depression. Depression is an illness, not just being sad, the thing that makes it depression is the fact that there isn’t some external thing (or lack of thing) making you sad, so a relationship isn’t going to add anything that would help.
I’m aware everyone’s experience is subjective, but drawing from my experience, you should avoid codependency. It would be very easy to fall into a relationship where your partner and the relationship becomes your source of self-worth, and caring for you becomes their source of self worth. I say this as someone who made that mistake and in the end both of us ended up happier once the relationship was over, but it was a very difficult situation to get out of for both parties. In the end caring for a partner as a source of self worth results in low self esteem, because nothing you can do will cure their depression, and both parties just end up completely burnt out.
Finally, avoid something I know my partner would have done after creating and reading this post: please don’t take the advice to not date as ‘proof’ that you’re not worth dating, that’s not true. Really the advice should say: don’t look for self-worth in a relationship.
At this point I don’t think there will ever be a cure given how long I have lived with it. Part of me wants to date so that there is something humanly normal about my life, another part stays up late at night wishing there was someone to hug me when Im sad and someone to share my music, memes, and fan theories with, and part is just amorous I think. I’m not experienced enough with dating to even know how to avoid codependence. I haven’t been in such a relationship but I also would know what to look for other than not have low self esteem.
There might not be a cure. I know that I don’t expect mine to ever really go away. But even when it’s still present, the degree to which you have it under control is a broad spectrum.
And yes, it is much more difficult for those of us with serious depression to maintain a healthy level of self-esteem, but it is not impossible by any means
Experience with dating is not how you avoid it. Self-esteem and being comfortable without a relationship are. That’s why the advice is to get those things sorted first.
No. You can learn to love yourself when you’re depressed. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Maybe not but they are highly comorbid. And having depression get in the way of a lot of my goal took a toll on my self esteem.
Allow me to paint a picture:
In your heart, you’ve got a little cup full of love. Sounds like yours is running on fumes.
Your hope is that someone else will fill this cup for you. But I’m saying you need to learn to fill it yourself first. Why?
Because love isn’t a free refill station—it’s an exchange. We trade sips from one another’s heart cups. Some people need a big sip. Some barely need any at all. Must be nice… 😒
So if you meet someone with a big, full cup, ready to share—what do you have to give them? If you don’t know how to refill your own, that love becomes a finite resource. Your partner pours into you, but you have nothing to pour back. And eventually, that drains them. It doesn’t lead to happiness—it leads to burnout, imbalance, and a slow spiral back to despair.
This is why you need a source from within. Not because love doesn’t exist. But because the best love is shared, not depended on.
I mean it sounds like you are describing someone who is selfish that demands much and returns little of those around them. I don’t believe I do that. But you are saying I will if I don’t figure out my self esteem issues before hand?
I’m saying if you don’t have a way to get self worth from yourself then you will be stuck dependent on your partner, and they will not always be able to provide that. It’s a skill that you need to be in a functional relationship.