love and value

What I've learned, quite painfully, is it seems we define our own value. And allowing bad behaviour invites more and a devaluing that has nothing to do with valuable and rare qualities, but everything to do with the feeling about self and what one deserves and will accept. The bad boyfriend (same old, duplicated as per aforementioned post), had told me he was too busy with work to have time to see me more than once a month and that he refused to take me out because I wasn't worth it.

If I dared to tell you the full extent of what I allowed to happen, any feminist worth his or her salt would probably spit with rage. The appalling relationship culminated with the bad boyfriend (not boyfriend since I was too poor to qualify as girlfriend, apparently), having told me that the reason he refused to take me out was because he was ashamed to be seen with me because I looked like a 'tramp' - didn't dress up on the few occasions he had taken me out in the beginning of the relationship. I wear jeans and sneakers all the time, cos I'm broke, and because he never did take me anywhere really special, I'd had no occasion to wear anything else. Well, he found somebody else who he thought was was worth the money and effort, cos he'd been dating somebody else behind my back.

He'd been taking her to the best restaurants and bars, taking her dancing, (something he'd never once done with me) showing her off. They saw each other often. Weekends, I'd been told, were devoted to his children. It seems they had been devoted to her. He sent me pictures of her and a video of him on a date with her to hurt me. She looked high maintenance (like him). Expensive. Opposite to me.

I don't bother much with my hair. I dash a bit of lipstick on my lips, brighten my pale cheeks and wear a few flecks of mascara. I wear the same old stuff everyday because I can't afford clothes. My sneakers are dirty from walking in the rain. Do I look like I value myself? I know there's value in natural prettiness, but I wonder, do I look valuable. Probably not. And do I feel it? Am I projecting my feeling about myself? Probably, yes and not helped by the crap relationship that dug me deeper into self-doubt.

I had believed his lies, that he was too busy to see me and that I ought to be grateful for the occasional, short visits to my nest. A friend of mine said to me, 'you allowed that'. I had interpreted his treatment of me as a reflection of my value as a woman, a reflection of my beauty. The other girl valued herself-she looked like money. Princessy, as was his description. The outward projection was an expectation of a certain variety of treatment (the treatment she got and I didn't-she was valued and prized). When he referred to her as a 'princess', he also told me I wasn't one and so wasn't worthy of that sort of treatment. The clothes-brands and muscles, is a projection of ones feeling about self. There's a part of me that wants to look expensive like the HM girl. But when I do dress up, I feel awkward and self-conscious. It's not my style-just feels uncomfortable, restrictive, too contrived somehow. I like my scruffy-ness. I like that people describe natural beauty. I don't have a lifestyle that calls for dresses and heels even if I owned them.

My friend said to me, 'if you want that sort of man [wealthy-powerful, muscles and brands], then you have to look the part-project the same energy/image (muscles and brands). Do I want that sort of man-one who would only treat me with respect, if he ever would have done, if I projected that sort of expensive, 'valuable' looking image and felt valuable as demonstrated by my projection of that image; or did I engineer the fact that I had gone so long broke to energetically weed him out? Was I ever happy with him? No. Was I in love-did I feel happiness of any sort in anticipation of seeing him or wake up happy at the thought of him? No. I liked the image of him, the idea of him. I liked that he was eligible. I liked that he could take me away to Jamaica if he wanted to. I didn't like that I knew he didn't want to. I'm downloading what the real kernel of this outer projection that meant I was incompatible with him was about. Some sort of inner wisdom from a deeper need for a man who really 'saw' me even in battered sneakers and still found me irresistible and wanted to show me off in my understated simplicity? Or did I simply have a real deep problem with self-value that meant I allowed emotional abuse? Both? What I pull from the wreckage is this: define your own value, lest somebody else does it for you, to your detriment.