I'm 21 years old and have recently graduated from college and have found a job which will start in July. I am very critical of myself. I'm in a relationship with a wonderful person, but after i began dating him, i started becoming very conscious of myself. My boyfriend happens to be very intelligent and I am not that intelligent because of which he often used to tease me, calling me \"dumb\". I tried not to be affected by it, but gradually started hating myself for being the way i am. I discussed the problem with him and he assured me that he loves me and looks up to me for who i am. But I am not convinced. the damage has been done. I'm pushing him away from my life, making us both miserable, but every time I have a conversation with him, I end up feeling very low. It bothers me that he has exceptional self confidence and nothing discourages him, which is so unlike me that I find myself secretly wishing to be like him. I don't blame him, but before I began dating him, i used to love myself and was very confident of myself. all that has changed. once, we both appeared for campus selection for a company and I failed the aptitude test while he got the job. I felt terrible. He has this ability to make me feel like a low, good for nothing person no matter what i achieve. he makes comments that are subtle but a sure indicator of my lack of intelligence. I am a singer and am quite creative and good at making friends, but nowadays everything I do, I end up disliking it. So far we studied in the same class in college and I always ended up comparing myself to him even for trivial things. When other people are appreciative of him and look up to him, it hurts me even more that I cant be like that. That said, we really love each other and he truly is wonderful to me, and I cannot blame any of this on him, but I'm helpless!

Dr. Gautham's reply:

Somewhere down the line you have been programmed  to think of yourself as 'not smart.' It may have been a teacher who put you down, or your family may be full of academically successful people and you have been programmed or have programmed yourself to think less of yourself because you don't have their particular set of skills.  It may have been some failure in academic performance or lack of achievement of something that you wanted, or some other set back which has made you believe that "I CANNOT". Whatever it is, is has left you with an image of yourself as a low achiever.  Theis program has been activated by your boy friend who studied in the same class with you and hence competed against you.

It is  common in our society for people to confuse the word 'smart' with the word 'academic'. Society reserves the 'prizes' for those whose gifts are intellectual. But there's a long, long list of people who dropped out of school or university but nonetheless made brilliant contributions through their creativity. There are many ways in which people can achieve their own personal potential - for example, some people excel in understanding other people; some people have brilliant mechanical imagination; some excel in understanding animals, or plants; some have that ability to grasp pattern and logic that makes them brilliant at computing. So, it is time you took stock of yourself and identified your potential. Write down your strengths on a sheet of paper. Include even the tiniest one (such as "I can sing", "I am creative", "I am good at making friends" ). Then ask a good friend to write down what he / she sees as your strengths. You will be surprised to see how many you have missed out and how differently others see you.

How do you respond when he puts you down? Do you say nothing and just endure it, or do you speak up and try to say something? It is possible that he makes himself feel better by putting you down. That means he has to keep doing it to get that same feeling, and you become his emotional ‘punching’ bag. Or it is possible that you are over-reacting to what he says. He may just be pulling your leg.

My advice is to do your best to not respond in anger; gather up all of your inner strength and respond in a calm, kind voice & say something like, “I love you so much. I want us to live a long, healthy & happy marriage. When you tell me that I sound stupid, it is hurtful to me. Do you want to hurt me? Because I would never want to hurt you…” Hopefully, this will prompt him to respond to you in a gentler way. At the least, it could give him something to think about. Then when he does it again, put yourself on repeat: “I love you so much…you have so many positive traits and I have pride in you…I want us to be partners and build one another up, not work against one another…” Say these things over and over in the same ways and in different ways with the hope of creating positive, healthy change in your relationship.