In Love Relationships, Connect from Your Heart, Not Your Ego

Love begins with emotional connection, not praise or admiration. Without a sense of connection, behavior serves the ego, locking us in a prison of self and making us susceptible to ego manipulation passing for love.

We can think of the ego as a compilation of the ways we prefer to think about ourselves, combined with how we want others to think about us. If we need to think we’re important, we’re likely to manipulate the impressions of others to make them think we’re important.

Big egos are in continual need of validation, as well as defense against those who fail to validate it. We defend the ego through argument, criticism, sarcasm, and coercion. When the ego feels threatened, the primary behavioral goal is to defend it with a stern offense (attack or counterattack), irrespective of truth and fairness. When the ego feels threatened, facts are either disregarded or weaponized.

That’s why it’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a big ego to fit into a marriage.

Large egos tend to be fragile. Those who suffer with them are easily offended, often misinterpreting other people’s intentions. Ego serves as a defense against vulnerable feelings, mostly guilt, shame, and anxiety. When we try to avoid feeling guilt, we can come off as distracted or worse, falsely ingratiating. When we try to avoid anxiety, we appear distracted or worse, controlling. When we try to avoid shame, we seem distracted or worse, rejecting and aggressive. All the above are compensation for low self-value.

Self-Value vs. Self-Esteem

Big egos tend to do well on self-esteem measures. Self-esteem is a function of how we feel about ourselves, based mostly on comparison to others. It often has a hierarchical bias – we’re better than some but, by implication, not as good as others. It has a dark side, as indicated by the research of Roy Baumeister and colleagues, summarized in the book, Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty. High self-esteem tends to create a sense of entitlement. When the world does not meet their entitlement needs, they retaliate with manipulation, abuse, or violence.

Self-value is more behavioral than emotional and conceptual, more about how you act toward what you value, including yourself, than how you feel about yourself compared to others. To value something goes beyond regarding it as important; you also appreciate its qualities, while investing time, energy, effort, and sacrifice in its maintenance. If you value a da Vinci painting, you focus on its beauty and design more than the cracks in the paint, and, above all, you treat it well, making sure that it is maintained in ideal conditions of temperature and humidity and shielded from direct lighting. Similarly, people with high self-value appreciate their better qualities (while trying to improve their lesser ones) and take care of their physical and psychological health, growth, and development. They understand that valuing others enhances self-value.

Signs of Low self-value:

• Entitlement
• Resentment
• Anger
• High anxiety
• Obsessions
• Depression.

Signs of High Self-Value:

• Interest in growth
• Contributing to a better world
• Supporting and nurturing family
• Honoring humane values.

Focus on Empowerment, Not Validation

If you have trouble feeling valuable, you may be stuck in the past or in therapy. Focus on how to get out of the hole, rather than how you got into it. Focus on what you must do to become the person and partner you most want to be.

Validation affirms your current state of feelings and perspective. Empowerment is the ability to change thoughts, feelings, and behavior to improve your state of being and your life in general. Validation is not an end, but a brief first step to healing, growth, and empowerment.

When feeling anxious, depressed, or resentful, exercise your capacity for compassion, kindness, and appreciation. You’ll enjoy an enhanced sense of self and be less vulnerable to harsh self-judgments and disrespect from others. And you’ll be less likely to seduce and be seduced into love.