Signs of Low Self-Esteem in Your Marriage

Healthy relationships are places of safety and nurture. When you feel secure, loved, supported, seen, and heard, you will flourish. A marriage can be a place of safety, but it can also be an emotionally or physically inhospitable space. When two people get married, they bring their respective strengths and weaknesses into the relationship. Wherever the couple starts, there’s room for growth and overcoming challenges.

One of the issues that can affect a marriage is if one or both of the spouses have low self-esteem. This can have many negative effects on the relationship. Growth toward healthy self-esteem is possible, and it can benefit the marriage in various ways.

Some Causes of Low-Self Esteem

Low self-esteem is when a person lacks confidence in themselves and their abilities. A person with low self-esteem may have a poor sense of self-value, and a poor opinion of themselves, their capacities, and other qualities about themselves. A person can have experiences that can change their self-esteem, or they can come from an environment where their esteem wasn’t nurtured.

A person’s self-esteem can be affected by experiences such as bullying, abuse, trauma, an unhealthy past relationship, unrealistic beauty standards perpetuated by various forms of media, experiencing racism and social stigma, going through separation or divorce, losing your job, or experiencing a significant failure at work or school. These and other experiences can make a person question their capacities and sense of worth.

A person’s self-esteem suffers if they grew up in a dysfunctional family or a home with toxic parenting. In such a space, a child might not have the ability to express themselves openly. Their needs and desires are often overlooked.

In such a toxic environment, you may never see good communication skills being modeled. You may not have been able to have healthy boundaries, resolve conflict well, or communicate assertively and clearly without resorting to aggression or other unhealthy expressions of anger.

In an unhealthy home environment, the child and other family members don’t experience support and acceptance. They may even be rejected, which can lead to the internalization of shame and lead to feelings of abandonment. The result is insecurity, anxiety, and an inability to regulate emotions well.

To cope, some people learn to either withdraw and hide their true feelings, act aggressively, or become fearful people pleasers who constantly walk on eggshells around others.

Signs of Low Self-Esteem

If you’re married, you, your partner, or both of you may have issues with low self-esteem. Being able to discern these signs in yourself or your spouse can help you identify the source of some behaviors and patterns of thought that could undermine your relationship.

Some of the signs of low self-esteem to look out for include the following:

Not trusting your significant other

Having a low self-regard can result in distrust. If the source of that low self-esteem is because of past infidelity, this can manifest as controlling behaviors and jealousy.

Being oversensitive

If a person doesn’t respond reasonably to anything resembling criticism, and they take it as an attack, that could be the result of low self-esteem.

Worry and doubt

We all have moments of worrying and doubting, but the person with low self-esteem will doubt their own position and resolve. After a decision, they may worry excessively that they’ve made the wrong one.

Being a people-pleaser

From a need to prove their worth to others, the person with low self-esteem will struggle to say “no” to others and go with the flow, being unwilling to stand against the opinions of others.

Being afraid of failure

Low self-esteem will often result in a lack of confidence in one’s ability to achieve success. This lack of confidence can fuel negative self-talk, which often results in creating a mindset that leads to failure.

Having poor or no boundaries

Being able to set limits on how people relate to or treat you can be hard for a person with low self-esteem. A person with low self-esteem will struggle to say “no” or set and assert their boundaries for fear of abandonment or rejection by others.

Self-blame

When things go wrong, it’s entirely appropriate to accept blame where you are at fault. The person with low self-esteem will often accept blame when things go wrong, even when it’s not their fault.

Unhealthy comparisons

We all find ourselves making comparisons to other people around us. However, the person with low self-esteem will constantly compare themselves to others, putting pressure on themselves to be like others instead of being themselves.

These signs along with others such as a fear of trying new things, having difficulty accepting compliments, and extreme mood swings may all indicate low self-esteem.

The Effects of Self-Esteem on Your Marriage

There is a connection between having healthy self-esteem and feeling satisfaction in your relationships. A person’s self-esteem affects how they think about themselves, whether they can receive love, as well as how they treat others and relate to them, particularly in intimate relationships. If you or your spouse have low self-esteem, it can have a profound impact on your relationship.

Low self-esteem affects not only your marriage but also your children who are part of the relationship. Some of the effects of low self-esteem on your marriage include:

Struggles with affection

Having low self-esteem makes it hard for a person to receive love and affection. When a spouse compliments them, they may be rejected because it’s hard to reconcile their sense of who they are with the compliment. This can cause friction between spouses, especially if the spouse who is trying to be supportive and complimentary feels rejected.

Struggles with criticism

Low self-esteem will often prevent one from being able to receive constructive criticism. That kind of criticism is how one grows, and its absence from a relationship means that the relationship can become quite frustrating.

Little vulnerability

Low self-esteem can stand in the way of vulnerability and openness in the relationship. To be vulnerable means being willing to put yourself out there, at the risk of being rejected or even causing hurt. A marriage needs vulnerability for intimacy to thrive, but low self-esteem makes it hard for someone to take such a risky step. This can make for a superficial relationship.

Rigid perfectionism

Low self-esteem can lead to a certain kind of perfectionism. Being perfect or having the appearance of it can function as a way of covering the fact that a person doesn’t feel confident in themselves. Wanting to hide your flaws can make life hard for the people around you, especially if they have to help you maintain this perfection or the appearance of it in your home and your life together as a couple.

Infidelity

Sometimes, people with low self-esteem will engage in infidelity because they feel unworthy of being married to their spouse, or of being married altogether. Infidelity then functions as a form of self-sabotage, to prove the unworthiness that’s deeply felt.

From the above, low self-esteem can cause much discomfort, disconnection, and superficiality in a marriage. The good news, however, is that low self-esteem and the issues it causes can be addressed.

How to Find Healing in Your Marriage

There are many reasons why a person can have low self-esteem. You and your spouse can think through your life experiences to explore if self-esteem issues might be at the root of some of your struggles. As you consider your marriage and the potential harm that low self-esteem issues may have caused, it’s important to recall that undoing low self-esteem and finding healing for your marriage takes time.

Through Christian marriage counseling, you and your spouse can gain insight into the value the Lord places upon you and grow in rooting your sense of self in who God says you are. Your counselor can help you internalize these things.

Likewise, you can grow in understanding what being “in Christ” means for how you see yourself in every area of your life. Your counselor will help you deal with yourselves and each other with compassion and empathy as you cultivate healthy self-appreciation.

Reaching Out

If you are ready to begin a counseling journey, reach out to our offices today. We will connect you with a Christian therapist in our practice who can help you heal from low self-esteem.