She learned to love herself before anyone else after changing herself time and again, in the fear of not being the perfect partner. Now she's happier.
In a relationship, as we spend more time with our partners, we tend to rub off on each other in the way we talk, our catchphrases, our style, or some of their interests. All these things change us a little from what we used to be. Even after the little alterations, we're not very different from who we were.
But sometimes, we intentionally transform ourselves into our partner's doppelganger, probably to get them to accept us even more. We are willing to do whatever it takes to make the relationship work. Even after putting all that effort, the relationship doesn't work out and we realize how much we've changed for the other person. So much so that we lost track of who we were.
Actress Demi Moore, 57, has gone through a lot in her personal life. Her addiction problems and relationships have always found a place in the gossip sections about which she spoke in her 2019 memoir Inside Out. In an episode of SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show, actress Demi Moore opened up about her marriages and subsequent divorces. She revealed that it took her three divorces to understand self-love.
She recalled how she felt pressured in all her marriages to be the person who would fit better with her ex-husbands and boyfriends. She said, "I think it's a process of, not to sound cliché, but it's really a process of learning to love yourself, accepting who you are just as you are," and then continued, "For me, I changed myself so many times over and over to fit what I thought somebody else wanted...," reported People.
The Striptease actress said that women are raised with the idea of putting others in front of their own needs in general and said, “It’s that idea that we’re kinda conditioned to work toward being desired, but we’re not supposed to have desires of our own," reported the US Weekly.
"It really is commendable in our disposal times to go through the journey of really honoring the love that brought you together in the first place and to really give it everything you’ve got. But you can’t do that without that love and acceptance of yourself,” she added.
The actress took her name from the musician Freddy Moore's stage name. He was also her first husband whom she married in 1981 when she was just 18. In her book, she admitted that the night before she said "I do," she cheated on her future husband. She wrote, “Why did I do that? Why didn’t I go and see the man I was committing to spend the rest of my life with to express my doubts? Because I couldn’t face the fact that I was getting married to distract myself from grieving the death of my father. Because I felt there was no room to question what I’d already put in motion. I couldn’t get out of the marriage, but I could sabotage it.”
Moore later met Die Hard superstar Bruce Willis and after four months of a whirlwind romance, the couple tied the knot in 1997. The parents to three children, daughters Rumer, 31, Scout, 29, and Tallulah Belle, 26, later divorced in 2000 when Moore found out about her husband's infidelity. “When he left to do Hudson Hawk, things were in a very precious state. I went over to visit once, and, frankly, I had the feeling that he had screwed around," she said, as reported by US Weekly.
Even after all the problems, the two managed to keep things normal. Moore admitted that the split wasn't easy but "we managed to move the heart of our relationship, the heart of what created our family, into something new that gave the girls a loving, supportive environment with both parents.”
The Ghost actress confessed that her romance with Ashton Kutcher made her feel like "a 15-year-old girl, hoping somebody liked me." Soon after they started dating in 2003, they exchanged vows in 2005. The actress revealed that the That 70's Show alum had cheated on her twice and had also expressed his deepest sexual desires which Moore agreed to because she always "put him first.”
She wrote. “So when he expressed his fantasy of bringing a third person into our bed, I didn’t say no. I wanted to show him how great and fun I could be.” But it left her with a feeling of "shame" and that's when things started falling apart in their marriage. In an interview with Diane Sawyer for Good Morning America, she said, “I think the thing if I were to look back, I would say I blinded myself and I lost myself."
Talking about her journey to love herself on SiriusXM’s, she gave some advice for the women who're currently in a relationship as well. She said, "Working through a relationship is really commendable in our disposable times," reported The Daily Mail. She added, "To go through the journey of really honoring the love that brought you together in the first place, and to really give it all you’ve got, but you can't do that without that love and acceptance of yourself."
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5TDaU1aLF0
https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/demi-moore-says-she-lost-herself-in-her-marriages/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=115&v=MlFl5WiMzBI