Your person should never make you feel unattractive or insecure — but that doesn’t mean they’re in charge of making you feel confident. It’s not their fault if you’re being hard on yourself. It’s not their fault if you hate what you look like in the mirror. It’s not their fault if you can’t see the beauty within yourself. But they might feel like it’s their fault.

They love you, so it’s going to kill them to see you tear yourself apart. They might reach a point where they wonder whether they’re doing something wrong, whether they aren’t giving you enough, whether they have been screwing up their job as your boyfriend.

It’s important to remember loving yourself is a solo journey. Even when you’re with the right person, a person who gives you constant reminders of how much you’re loved, you’re still going to feel insecure if you haven’t learned to love yourself yet.

When you’re feeling bad about yourself, you have to remind your person it has nothing to do with them, because you don’t want to get into needless arguments. You don’t want your person to get frustrated with you because they do everything for you and you’re still unhappy. You have to make sure they realize your insecurities have nothing to do with them. They haven’t done anything wrong. They haven’t been neglecting you in any way. This is about you. This isn’t about them.

Once they realize this, it’ll be easier for you to communicate about your insecurities. After all, you don’t want to feel like you aren’t allowed to tell your person how you’re feeling because they might take it the wrong way and get insulted. If you’re feeling bad about yourself, you should be able to talk to them about it. You should be open with your feelings. And you should dedicate time and energy to working on solving those feelings.

You aren’t going to be happy in your relationship until you’re happy with yourself. If you’re insecure, there are going to be moments when you get jealous and act overprotective and lash out. There are going to be times when you accuse him of being bored of you or get paranoid about him abandoning you. Your insecurities can destroy your relationship. They can create unnecessary drama and distance.

That’s why you have to make a promise to yourself to start treating yourself better. Start treating your mental health as a priority. Start learning to love yourself. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many compliments your boyfriend gives you or how many times he says he loves you — because if you’re insecure then you’re never going to believe he’s telling the truth. You’re going to assume he’s only saying nice things to make you happy, to tell you what you want to hear.

When you learn to love yourself, it will be easier to accept love from him. It will be easier to see why such a great guy fell in love with you.