From "So Worth Loving"

Ashley Fielden at So Worth Loving wrote:
I like many other woman have been obsessed with romantic love. The idea of it. The possession of it. The identity I cling to from it.
It is altogether a whirlwind of magic and or devastation.
When any person places the weight of their entire identity on a house of cards it will smash into a thousand pieces.
I’ve come to learn "Friendship makes a LIFE even more deeply than (Romantic) love" (Elie Weisel).

I am all for love! I love- love! However I am not EVER for placing your hands around someone in an attempt to control them for the sake of your own happiness.
I am also not a fan of ultimatum “love”, the I have to have it “love” or the being entirely lost without him love.
I was once this girl. Fragile and needing to cling to a man. In affect suffocating him and unconsciously hating myself for it!
This way of being was never intended for us as women.
I am coming to learn the value of investing in myself. People may say it is self indulgent or selfish. But I can say with the utmost confidence it is the best gift you can give the world!
Nurture your own light and love!!!
Being in a place of utter contentment with who you are is a very rare beauty indeed.
Unimaginable for most of us. But I have slowly put in the hours of truly, undeniably loving myself. A friendship is built on hours of time spent in mutual trust and admiration. Not on a high of a look or touch. And so it is with yourself.
Time must be invested in oneself so that you may and WILL have that rare beauty of loving yourself!

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I don't have much of anything to add. I agree with what she said, and she said it more simply than I usually do.  If you want to be beautiful, you have to know inside and outside, up and down, front and back, in the morning and at night that you are beautiful.  It took me about two years to learn this.  Perhaps if you don't hate yourself to start with, it won't take as long.  But this mirrors a relationship with another person. You get to know them/yourself and then you come to love them/yourself.  If you won't do it for yourself, why should someone else do it for you? 

I saw the So Worth Loving post on To My Future Spouse