Feeling Like You're Not Good Enough For Your Partner

Do you often feel that you're not worthy of your partner? This perception is more frequent than you might think, although it has important consequences. We look at the possible causes.

Written and verified by the psychologist Valeria Sabater.

Last update: 22 December, 2022

“I feel like I’m not good enough for my partner, and worry that they’re going to leave me.” Do you find yourself navigating your relationship with this uncomfortable and exhausting kind of feeling? In fact, there are few situations that can be as damaging to your own psychological well-being as harboring these types of ideas.

If you don’t feel good enough for your partner, you may well feel similarly in other areas of your life as well. For example, work, friendships, and personal aspirations. Perhaps you feel like an ugly duckling and think you possess no charisma, talent, or virtues. If this is the case, you end up becoming a secondary actor in your life. In fact, you’re more of a spectator and never play a leading role.

It’s unacceptable and unhealthy to live conditioned by this type of internal narrative. It’s made up of the kinds of ideas that usually have certain underlying reasons, that are well worth looking into.

Feeling you’re not good enough for your partner

In childhood, you learned to love but also distrust others. At this stage, you also learned whether you felt good about yourself or not. Going through life trusting in yourself, and feeling worthwhile is the best recipe for contentment and healthy self-esteem.

If you feel that you’re not good enough for your partner, it gives way to fragile and poisoned links. They’re those in which you feel a constant fear of abandonment, where jealousy and distorted thoughts fester, and you have a thousand and one insecurities associated with your relationship itself.

We could say that the origin lies in low self-esteem. However, this psychological construct is largely nourished by your interaction with your environment. Indeed, the figures that were (and are) part of your daily life can also condition the vision you have of yourself.

Let’s see what dimensions are usually behind feelings of inferiority to your partner.

Narcissistic parents: children with a feeling of inferiority

An investigation conducted by the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) mentioned the effects generated by paternal or maternal narcissism on the self-esteem of children. This type of modeling encourages children to have to please their parents and satisfy the needs of others, undervaluing their own. It has harmful consequences in the psychosocial development of the individual.

Narcissistic parents don’t provide security, healthy affection, or validation. This means their children grow up with significant emotional needs and a feeling of being worthless and constantly at a disadvantage compared to others.

An extensive history of disappointments and failures in love

If you feel you’re not good enough for your partner, you should explore your emotional history. You might well find you’re carrying around an emotional backpack full of disappointments and frustrations, and a broken heart that’s never been repaired. All of this can make you believe that ‘there’s something wrong’ with you.

Failures in emotional matters can also affect your self-image, even causing you to see yourself as ‘defective’. You develop a conglomeration of ideas that give shape to a clearly harmful vision of yourself.

Lack of security and trust in the relationship

When the relationship with your loved one is filled with doubts and fears, there’s always a reason. The problem may be in you in the form of low self-esteem, childhood traumas, and unresolved past relationships. On the other hand, the fault may lie with your partner for not looking after your relationship in the way they should. For example:

• They may not be giving you adequate emotional support.
• They might be conducting a unidirectional relationship. This means that they’re the only ones who decide which direction your relationship takes.
• They make you feel insecure. Furthermore, they’re critical and excessively judgmental toward you.

Comparing yourself with your partner or environment and feeling at a disadvantage

Your partner may be really attractive or have a good job. Or, perhaps you find their family, friends, and their immediate environment particularly dazzling which makes you feel at a disadvantage.

This isn’t unusual. Indeed, there are many people who feel disadvantaged by the beauty of their partners, their professional achievements, or the fact that they have more harmonious families. The basis of this discomfort is low self-esteem and the belief that their partner’s positive traits put them at a disadvantage. It’s clearly a problematic approach.

You’ve experienced changes in your life or appearance

Unemployment can be one of the factors that promote a feeling of not being good enough for your partner. Especially if it’s long-lasting. In fact, the loss of work can end up producing a significant erosion of your identity, to the point that you develop extremely negative feelings and perceptions toward yourself.

This can go to the extreme of not feeling valid or worthy of the affection and admiration of your loved one. On the other hand, factors such as gaining weight or undergoing any other physical changes can also have a great impact. You might even lose confidence to the point of taking it for granted that your partner will stop desiring or loving you.

Finding the root of the problem

You can’t find happiness as one half of a couple (or even on your own) if you don’t have good self-esteem, feel inferior, and are constantly criticizing yourself. Therefore, you must identify the root of the problem. In order to do this, you must seek specialized help.

Approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy can help you increase your self-esteem by allowing you to develop a healthier mental approach. On the other hand, compassion-focused therapy is also really useful for generating feelings of security, self-acceptance, and self-efficacy.