Worth vs. Value – Which is more important or are they equal?

January 30, 2023

10:27 am

It is mid-morning here in middle America. The winter weather is still ongoing and sleet mixed with rain is occurring.

As I sit here eating last night’s leftovers, drinking coffee, and watching the accumulation of sleet on the ground, I ponder.

This morning I got upset and anxious but I quickly recovered. This all happened before my renewed morning routine of meditation, prayer, and morning affirmations. I woke up anxious and as usual, my thoughts were centered around this online relationship.

I took a step back and looked at our recent messages. He sent me messages of love and longing to be with me. It is what we always send to one another. It has been the same sentiment for the last eight months now. I have no doubt this person cares and loves me because I feel the same.

There is an issue though and I finally put everything together some months back. I realized this is the person I met online in 2017. There were too many coincidences and similarities to refute it. I confronted him and he neither confirmed nor denied it. It has been left open with no resolution.

That is the part of the problem causing my anxious moments. This person is involved with someone else based on the information in his online presence. I have known this since the summer of 2017 but at the same time, I was trying to understand why he approached me in the first place.

I found out he was previously married and got involved with this current person right afterward. Then within six months of that relationship starting is when he met me through an online dating app. We talked for a few months back then.

Unknown to me, at that time, at the beginning of 2017, I was unaware of that relationship when I became involved and enamored by him. He said all these beautiful things to me and changed my self-perception. That was the positive that came out of that interaction.

It ended just as quickly as it started. I was still in my spiral down into depressive episodes. I was not ready for a relationship. I thought I was but realized that adding that to my recovery process was not working. I spoke with him about it at that time and we agreed to part ways.

It was the best decision and I still had a lot of therapy and sorting through my thoughts to work on. I never forgot about him. I thought about him quite often and later is when I found his online accounts. I have been following him on and off for years.

His relationship with this other person continued and grew. Then in March of 2020, he contacted me again, under another name but at that time, I did not put two and two together not realizing it was him. That was really bad timing at the beginning of the pandemic and it ended, again. I spent the next two years working on myself more and just dealing with our new reality.

Realizing who it was, did not happen until this recent contact when he found me again under the same name from 2020. This person has sought me out and gotten in contact with me three times now. I still do not fully understand why?

He has asked me to be patient with him and to trust him. It took me a while but I decided to give it a chance knowing that I could be hurt emotionally by this interaction. That is when I had to evaluate what is the worth and value of this relationship to me.

Worth – “the value equivalent to that of someone or something under consideration; the level at which someone or something deserves to be valued or rated.”

Value – “the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something. Consider (someone or something) to be important or beneficial; have a high opinion of.”

Why do human beings put these two words in correlation to how we feel about people, situations, or things? It is because we are trying to determine what it means to us.

In this context for myself, is it worth the time and effort I put into it? Is this relationship worth that to me? In the beginning, no, because I was not patient. Patience is not my best virtue. I have always been this hard-hitting, go-getter, with an attitude of “I don’t play to lose”. Then with each anxious rant precipitated by long drawn-out messages to him, I began to realize that I needed to take a step back, and give him space to think about what he wanted. The decision to move on is not up to me. He has more at stake than I do. I have to give him that.

Making that decision to be patient and give him the time has not been easy. Yet, after each anxiety-filled message, he comes back patient, calm, and understanding. We talk things through and he reassures me things will work out. He continues to tell me he loves me and wants to be with me. I still have my moments, like this morning, but going back to my morning routine has helped. I had let them go the past few weeks and the anxiety was getting worse.

The last three days I have been more focused and calmer. I came to the realization that he has messaged me almost every single day since the end of May 2022 and he has pursued forming a relationship with me on and off since 2017. If he was not serious about this, then the communication would have stopped. Per his online presence, he does not seem like a person that wastes time on things he does not value.

Value, we place value on things, people, or situations normally because we are trying to determine what the benefit is to us. How do you value human interaction, a human being, and an emotion? In my perspective, you have to evaluate it against your own goals, aspirations, or future.

In my situation, I am divorced, my ex-husband passed away, and I have not been in a serious relationship since my marriage. That ended in 2015, it has been eight years since and it is time to look for another relationship. It took eight more years of therapy and counseling to work through my issues to be ready to include someone in my life again. This time I am surer than I was six years ago.

After that first interaction with him, I attempted to meet people online through social media and dating apps. I either met them in person or we talked through text messages, calls, and video chats. In the past five years, it was always a hit or miss. Most were not serious about a relationship, long-term relationships, or the possibility of marriage.

There was also the issue of them not having any sort of goals for their life. They were complacent and not looking at doing anything more in their life. I, on the other hand, have always set my goal and worked towards them, then set a new one. I have not had a time where I did not set any personal goals. I think it is important to continuously learn and grow.

Lastly, there was the big issue, of them not having compassion or care for others. To feel empathy towards other human beings. The men I met were pretty selfish and only cared about what they wanted or needed at that moment. They did not even care about my own needs and I was blown off quite a bit. My ideas and creativity were bashed and said to be irrelevant. That was an eye-opener for me and made me realize what I wanted even more.

This person I have been involved with is always encouraging my creativity, thoughts, and ideas. If he does not understand, he says so, and we discuss it. If I make mistakes, I apologize, and we move on. He has not held these things against me or brought them up to bash me with them over and over again like the others before. We have been pretty open with our feelings and it is refreshing to have someone say what they feel. I am not trying to guess or read their mind.

This relationship has provided the emotional value that I needed and was looking for. I have doubts but it is always self-doubts about myself as a person that comes into play. I am still working through my trauma, anxiety, and depression, he knows about all of this. I have been very open about it with him from the very beginning and the very first interactions.

I have come to realize that I value this person for who he is and the care he has shown me. I have also realized that it is worth my time to wait and see where it goes.

On a side note, he keeps talking about taking care of me, and I keep having to remind him that I have taken care of myself for quite a while. I tell him that it is sweet of him to offer but we will have to discuss that further, later.

All those goals I set for myself, the fruits of my labor, are keeping me stable and secure, the only things I have ever wanted. I have never been into frivolous things, it’s nice but not necessary. The only exceptions have been my creative hobbies and aspirations.

As long as I have a roof over my head, utility bills paid, food in my pantry, clothes in my closet, a cell phone, and a car to drive, what more do I need?

It has been my hard work that kept my family afloat for all those married years. I never backed down from any challenges. It is those same efforts that kept us moving after we lost my ex-husband and I became a single parent again.

It is those same efforts, goals, and pursuit of knowledge that keeps me moving. The only thing that I want, that is out of my hands, are a relationship and companionship. Those will always depend on the other person. They either choose to stay or go. I would not be there if that was not what I wanted. I never stick around where I’m not wanted.

As we continue to move forward, it is a wait-and-see for me, at some point this will come to some sort of conclusion. Either I will be with him or I will not.

I also made the decision the last six months that I was tired of always being the “good person” who is always doing the right thing and backing down from situations. It was time for me to think about what I wanted or needed in my life, no matter the outcome. I can no longer be afraid of adversity or avoid it.

All I know is, that I do think he is worth the wait because he has seen my worth, and I value him as a person because he values me in return.

Really, what else is there?

Thank you so much for stopping by.

Have a fabulous week!

Peace, love, happiness, and good vibes, always!

Suzanne