Love as Self-Esteem in Action and Mutual Investment in Relationships
- Apr 26
- 7 min read
Written by Roje Khalique, Founder of rkTherapy
Roje Khalique is a visionary clinical consultant with 20 years of experience in mental health. She is the founder of rkTherapy, a London-based bespoke psychology consultancy, and a specialist in culturally attuned Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).
Most people think love is something that happens to you. It is not. Love is something you bring, and what you bring depends entirely on how much you believe you are worthy of bringing it. Self-esteem is not confidence. It is not achievement or status or how well your life looks from the outside. It is the quiet, unshakable recognition that you have intrinsic worth, that you are worthy of care, respect, and genuine investment, simply because you exist. It begins developing in childhood, shaped by how we are treated by parents, teachers, and peers, and later by partners, friendships, and the wider culture. It is not fixed. It continues to evolve across a lifetime. However it develops, how it shows up in relationships is what matters most.
From that foundation, something becomes possible that cannot be faked or forced, you can extend the same recognition to another person. You can see their worth clearly, value their growth honestly, and pour into their life, not out of need or habit or fear of being alone, but out of genuine belief in them. That is love. And when it flows both ways, both people thrive.
The myth of the perpetual spark
Love is not a feeling that arrives and sustains itself. The spark, the excitement, the romance, those are moments, and moments pass. Every relationship will outlive its early intensity. What remains is either intention or nothing.
Love sustained is love made visible, the consistent, deliberate choice to invest in another person across every dimension of their life, emotionally, practically, socially, financially, spiritually. Not in grand gestures, but in the dailiness of showing up. And in a relationship worth having, that investment flows both ways.
When someone loves you well, they help you see your own potential. They encourage you towards things you might not have reached for alone. They make you feel safe enough to grow. Research confirms what most people already sense: supportive, reciprocal relationships are consistently linked to higher self-esteem, greater confidence, and deeper life satisfaction.[1] [2] A longitudinal study of married couples found that self-esteem rises when both partners invest in each other and feel genuinely appreciated, respected, and supported.[3] [4] When that reciprocity is absent, one person's growth pulls ahead, and the gap quietly becomes the relationship's undoing.
Think of it as two trains on parallel tracks. The question is not whether the journey is exciting. The question is whether both trains are still moving forward and at the same speed.
The train analogy: Staying on your own train
Here is the question worth sitting with honestly: Is the other person investing in you as much as you are investing in them?
In a healthy relationship, both trains run together, side by side, committed to the same direction. You support each other through delays and difficulties. You travel alongside each other. But each of you remains on your own track, maintaining your own engine, responsible for your own journey.
What I see repeatedly in clinical practice is something else entirely. People step off their own train. They pour so much into another person's journey, a partner, a child, a parent, a sibling, that they lose sight of their own. They begin to mistake someone else's progress for their purpose. And slowly, without realising it, love becomes something it was never meant to be, a slow drain. This is not selflessness. It is self-abandonment. And it is almost always rooted in low self-esteem, in a belief, usually unspoken, that being needed is the closest thing to being loved.
When your self-esteem is intact, you love differently. You stay on your own train. You invite others alongside you, and you travel alongside them, but you do not surrender your own direction to prove your devotion. You invest in the other person whilst continuing to invest in yourself. You expect reciprocity. And you notice, honestly, when it is missing.
I have sat with people who say, quietly and with some shame, "I gave up my own dreams to support them." That is not love's highest expression. That is someone who stepped off their own train believing that was what love required. It is not. Love requires you to stay on your track, fully and committedly, whilst walking alongside someone else on theirs. Those are not in conflict. In a healthy relationship, they are the same thing.
Three patterns I see in therapy
A. High self-esteem, low self-esteem
One person pours consistently into the other, emotionally, practically, socially, financially, spiritually. On the surface, it can look like devotion. But when giving flows in one direction only, the giver slowly empties. Over time, love curdles into resentment. The relationship does not fail because the effort was absent. It fails because it was never returned.
B. Strong self-esteem on both sides
Mutual investment flows naturally. Both people maintain their own growth whilst genuinely supporting the other's. Both trains move forward together. This is the rarest and most enduring model: two people, fully themselves, choosing each other repeatedly.
C. Low self-esteem on both sides
Neither person knows their own worth, so both look for it in each other. They seek validation, the feeling of being needed, the reassurance that they are enough. But when neither person believes they are enough on their own, no amount of love from the other will fill that gap. Two people outsourcing their self-esteem is not love. It is co-dependency, and it will exhaust itself long before it resembles something healthy.
Measuring reciprocity
Love beyond romance is measurable, not in grand gestures, but in the consistency of everyday investment. Ask yourself:
Do they invest in your growth as much as you invest in theirs?
Do they make you feel as safe, emotionally and physically, as you make them feel?
Do they show up for you in the hard moments, the way you show up for them?
Do they celebrate your wins as genuinely as you celebrate theirs?
If the answer to any of these questions is no, one person is on the platform whilst the other speeds ahead (pattern A). That is not a relationship built on love. It is a relationship built on imbalance, and it will not hold.
The question nobody wants to answer
Clients sometimes ask me, "But what if it doesn't work out?" And I tell them plainly, it might not. When your life includes another person, you cannot control their choices or every outcome. They may stay for the whole journey, or they may step off at any point, for reasons that have nothing to do with your worth. That is not a failure of love.
That is life. This is precisely why you must never stop investing in yourself. Your journey must be able to continue regardless. The people who suffer most when relationships end are not those who loved too much. They are those who stopped moving forward on their own track whilst they were loving someone else.
Conclusion
Much of what passes for self-esteem today is performance. Social media has taught people to curate a self rather than build one, to chase authenticity as an aesthetic rather than develop it as a foundation. People arrive in therapy fluent in the language of wellness: live your best life, be your authentic self, protect your energy. These are not wrong ideas. But they are surface ideas. Mental health is not about living a perfect life or presenting a perfected self. It is about building a mind stable enough to live any life, including the difficult ones. That is where real self-esteem begins. And that is where real love becomes possible.
Love begins with self-esteem. Not the performed kind, not the vision boards and affirmations, but the real kind, a settled sense of your own worth that does not depend on being needed, chosen, or validated by another person.
From that place, you can love someone without losing yourself in them. You can give generously without giving yourself away. You can stay, fully and freely, because you want to, not because you have forgotten how to leave.
The relationships that last are not built on spark or sacrifice. They are built on two people who know their own worth, who choose each other from that place, and who keep moving forward, each on their own track, side by side, full steam ahead. That is the love that sustains. That is love as self-esteem in action.
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Read more from Roje Khalique
Roje Khalique, Founder of rkTherapy
Roje is a clinical practitioner for a wide range of anxiety disorders and depression. She is dedicated to making quality psychological support accessible to high-achieving professionals in the legal and finance industries in London's high-stakes corporate world. During COVID-19, she recognised a global and increasing need for evidence-based support and developed a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) online, virtual platform and a mobile app. Designed to fit the demanding schedules of professionals not only in London but across Europe, the US, the Middle East, and Asia.
References:
[1] Feeney, B. C. (2010). Support behaviours and affective responses during mutual goal pursuit: The role of perceived partner responsiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(3), 468-491.
[2] Luciano, E. C., & Orth, U. (2017). Transitions in romantic relationships and development of self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112(2), 307–327.
[3] Chen, Y., Roberts, T., & Lin, J. (2024). Gendered patterns of perceived partner support and self-esteem in marriage: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Family Psychology, 38(2), 210-225.
[4] Mund, M., Finn, C., Hagemeyer, B., & Neyer, F. J. (2016). Understanding dynamic transactions between self-esteem and relationship satisfaction. European Journal of Personality, 30(4), 427-440.
