codependency vs love

"in order to love others, we must first learn to love ourselves."

Although every relationship is different and the order of steps it takes can differ, but one step needs to always come first and it is self-love.

But, what makes self-love so important in a relationship? While one may think that self-love has no effect on their significant other, it does, however, affect them in a not-so-direct way. 

To elaborate, if one person doesn't love themselves and has low self-esteem it will cause them to look for a relationship regardless of whoever they're with. This is due to them wanting to feel loved since they don't give themselves enough love, and so they will start to act as someone they're not in order to fit what their s/o likes or what the stereotype of eligibility is. Consequently, the relationship will no longer be based on mutual love, rather it'll be based on codependency.

The person with low self-esteem might convince themselves that who they're acting as is who they actually are, they might convince themselves that they love their s/o and that their s/o loves them back, but this can never be the case because they don't really love their s/o, they're dependent on their love to feel valuable, and whoever their s/o loves is the fake persona or facade and not the person themselves. 

This could be so dangerous in a relationship because if the s/o senses their low self-esteem, they might use that to change them further into what they desire, they might act radically to the point of domestically abusing them to build up their own self-esteem by breaking down the other person's self-esteem since it is too low for them to speak up or fight back. 

Codependency is not a way of love, it's a type of toxic relationship that is based on two people using one another to build up their self-esteem but, in the end, either one of them ends up with none or both of them end up with none, either way, it's never a win-win situation.