Am I unlovable? Here’s why you feel unworthy of love

Many researchers have confirmed what most humans already know to be true: Love is a biological necessity, just like water or food. Close personal relationships that provide love and intimacy give us a sense of belonging and connection to something other than ourselves. They’re also a critical source of our happiness.  

But what happens when you feel unworthy of love, or worry that something about you makes you unlovable?

As it turns out, this feeling is more common than you think. Keep reading to find out where it stems from, and how to cope.

What does it mean to feel unlovable? 

People who question their loveability usually attach some story to their worthiness of receiving love. This story can look different for everyone, but often sounds like some version of the below:

You feel like you’re “broken” or “bad.” This comes down to one’s self-worth. If you feel that love is conditional and contingent on being some idealized version of yourself that you cannot live up to, you may believe you’re incapable of being loved.

You feel like an “other.” Everyone has had the experience of being an “other” at one point or another in their lives—a.k.a. feeling different than the people in your surroundings. But if this feeling is persistent, you may start to believe that “everyone else is worthy or capable of receiving love, but since I’m not like other people, I am unlovable.”

You feel you always “mess up” your relationships. If your dating and relationship history hasn’t been great, and you tend to self-blame when things don’t end well, you may assume that you’re inherently unlovable and that’s why you’re single.

Four reasons why you might feel unworthy of love

There are many different factors that might cause someone to feel unlovable. The reason might stem from prior experiences or negative thinking patterns. Here are some common explanations:

• Low self-esteem: A lack of confidence in yourself may cause you to think you’re unworthy of intimacy. “I have found the lower the self-esteem, the more someone seeks out unhealthy romantic partners who will only further validate how they are ‘unworthy’ of love,” says Meaghan Campbell, LMHC, a therapist at NOCD. This is usually not done consciously or intentionally. “It can be a pretty awful cycle,” she adds.

• Abuse: If you’re currently in (or have experienced) an emotionally abusive relationship, your abuser may influence your thinking. They may gaslight you into believing you aren’t good enough for them or anyone else. These feelings might linger even if the relationship has ended. It’s worth noting that the source of your feeling this way doesn’t have to be a romantic partner; friends and family can also emotionally abuse or neglect you.

• Infidelity: Being cheated on by a previous or current partner might cause you to think you’re unlovable because they turned to someone else.

• Insecure attachment styles: Attachment theory says that early emotional bonds influence how one approaches relationships later in life. If you have an insecure attachment style—which may be anxious, avoidant, or disorganized—it may affect the way you view your worth in relationships. “All attachment styles beyond ‘secure’ will make having good self-esteem harder to develop and maintain,” explains Campbell.

When mental health concerns may be at play

While feeling unlovable doesn’t always show up alongside mental health issues, sometimes it does signal an underlying concern. Here are a few examples:

• Depression: Persistent feelings of worthlessness are a common symptom in major depressive disorder.
• Anxiety: If you’re living with an anxiety disorder, you may experience frequent worries about how others perceive you. This is especially common in social anxiety disorder, which involves chronic and intense fears surrounding social interactions. For instance, you may constantly feel like everyone hates you, which may cause you to believe that no one could ever love you.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): Sometimes trauma survivors believe they deserved to experience whatever traumatic event they went through. That may cause them to believe they also don’t deserve love, or any other good things to happen to them.
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): There’s a subtype of OCD called relationship OCD that’s characterized by ongoing intrusive thoughts and feelings regarding close personal relationships. Those with ROCD may doubt everything about their relationship, even if it’s completely stable. “OCD takes full advantage of this,” Campbell says. 

The key components of OCD, including ROCD, are obsessions and compulsions. The obsession may be a thought that plays on repeat such as “I’m not worthy of my partner’s love” and the compulsion is a behavior done in response to cope with the distress. For instance, they may engage in constant reassurance-seeking by asking their partner over and over again “are you sure you love me?”, or “There’s no way we could break up, right?”

• Borderline personality disorder (BPD): BPD is a serious psychological condition marked by unstable emotions, relationships, and behavior. Those dealing with BPD have symptoms like a fragile sense of self, unstable relationships, fear of abandonment, or paranoia. They also often experience all-or-nothing thinking. For example, if someone doesn’t text them back right away, their mind might automatically think that it’s because they aren’t loved, instead of considering the multiple other possibilities.

Can you overcome feeling unlovable? 

Yes, absolutely. The reason is this: just because you feel unlovable doesn’t mean you are unlovable. And changing how we feel is entirely within our control. Here are some strategies to try:

• Practice self-compassion: When things don’t go the way you wanted them to, instead of being hard on yourself, try to treat yourself with kindness. Just because your date didn’t go well or you went through a messy friendship breakup doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t get to experience closeness ever again. When you experience these interpersonal struggles, be gentle with yourself.

• Quit comparing yourself to others: If you’re constantly comparing yourself to others, try to give yourself more grace. Maybe your friends are always posting their partners on social media and they look “so in love” and that reinforces the belief that you aren’t. In those moments when you’re scrolling, remind yourself that everyone’s situation is different. Not to mention, just because someone seems to have it all doesn’t mean they deserve more or less love than you do. 

• Talk about your feelings: If you’re in a relationship, it may be helpful to communicate with your partner that you’ve been feeling a bit unworthy of receiving their love. (If you’ve been self-sabotaging or pushing your partner away because of this belief, opening up can also be helpful so they understand why.) 

• Consider therapy: There’s no shame in needing the help of a supportive mental health professional to explore the cause of your low self-worth or other contributing factors. The best therapists act like “mirrors”—reflecting back to you the love that is inherent in you, that you’re a match to. Of course, if you’re coping with an underlying mental health issue, the exact type of therapy you choose is particularly important. 

What kind of therapy do I need for ROCD?

If you think your feelings of unlovability are related to ROCD, you would best benefit from exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP), a very specialized form of behavioral therapy that was created specifically to treat OCD. A therapist who specializes in ERP will guide you as you gradually confront your intrusive thoughts and worries—the thoughts that tell you that you’re not worthy of love, or that you’re going to be left. ERP therapy deliberately triggers those thoughts, so that you can develop what are called response prevention techniques—this basically means that you learn new ways of coping with your obsessive thoughts that don’t involve behaviors like constantly asking for reassurance.

What might ERP look like in practice? Campbell says she might encourage therapy members to do small things each day that challenge their core belief. “I will ask them ‘what would someone who is undeserving of love do?’—and then use their answer to this question to come up with appropriate exposures,” she says. So, if they say that being inconsiderate makes someone unloveable, Campbell will have them do something “minimally thoughtless or rude.” That could mean not holding the door open for their partner, or interrupting their partner when they’re speaking. 

It may sound counterintuitive but the point is to recognize that our “imperfections” don’t make us unlovable.

Over time, ERP helps people with ROCD build meaningful, fulfilling relationships—and even more than that—a healthier sense of self-esteem.

Bottom line

Most of us struggle with self-worth every now and then. These struggles don’t always mean there’s a larger mental health concern at play. Still, understanding the symptoms and signs of conditions associated with low self-worth is critical to getting specialized help when needed. If you’re persistently feeling unlovable, there’s no shame in getting guidance to navigate these emotions.