j'adore fabulosity

The Lox had it basically right, money, power, and respect are three things that can and will open the doors to success in this life, and in relationships the second and third are especially true. When you surrender your power and your respect in a romantic relationship, it's doomed to fail. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mean power in the sense of total domination and control, I mean the power that you have over yourself and the same can be said for respect. I can't even begin to number the times that I have talked to individuals about the problems in their relationships only to find that the underlying issue was not with their significant others but with them.
As a woman, I know that when we find someone we think is "the one" we tend to give all of ourselves, including our power. We loose control, ourselves, and our self-respect for men. We allow relationships to define us and determine our happiness. We are willing to surrender our own individual existence for what we think is the greater good of the relationship, but usually this is not an action of equality or reciprocity. Cluelessly we handover our self respect, dignity, and pride. Chasing men, believing their every word, doing whatever, whenever they want is so unhealthy. We make them our everything and when they leave we have nothing only leaving us angry, bitter, and mad as hell.
But this can be avoided. 1st, we have to know our worth. Women settle for less than the best because we don't appreciate how much and how good we really are. If we knew better, we would do better. We would not sell ourselves short, wasting precious months and years on men that aren't even worth our seconds. 2nd, we have to stop giving up our power. When we succumb to the will of men we give them control over our lives, and they dictate our happiness. 3rd and finally we must demand respect. But to do so we have to first respect ourselves by not allowing men to degrade and demean us and more importantly by not degrading and demeaning ourselves. Respect is earned, so to earn it we must prove to ourselves and everyone else that we are worthy.

--"Love yourself enough to live life for you and nobody else"--