Originally Posted by
SparkleKitty 
Wellllll, honestly this is why I am always spouting about being alone for a long time when one enters recovery from codependency. About purposely avoiding relationships so you can focus on yourself and who you are when you are alone.
One CAN grow and learn about oneself in a relationship, for sure. But it's a lot harder and a lot more confusing, especially when you don't have a strong foundation of self to begin with.
^^This, a million percent.
I've said this so many times around here I'm sure you're all tired of hearing it. It can almost seem
too simple.
If you want to develop Self love, Self respect & Self trust, the common denominator is spending time with yourSelf, intimately, the way you do with any other person when you are trying to develop a relationship.
One obstacle is that internally, we fight far more judgments & assumptions than we do in external relationships. We don't THINK so, but I can promise it is true for 99% of us. We've spent years developing these patterns of denial & judgment-based thinking & they masquerade strongly as personality traits a lot of the time. It gets very difficult to unwind WHO we are from WHERE we are.
Another big obstacle is (obviously) other people's demands for our time & attention - it takes away the amount of time we CAN dedicate to our own needs. There are only so many hours in the day, that's just math.....
The most common thing I see in people around me is that just when they start to dig into those hard issues they recoil in response to the pain/reality/awareness it brings & they back off from their recovery efforts. (not implying that this is you in any way) I have a friend that openly admits she knows she does this & says she's not sure if/when she'll feel ready to move on, she'd rather tread water.
To answer your OP - at the beginning of my recovery 5+ years ago, I probably knew myself about 20% fully. Now, I'd put that closer to 80% and rising. This is the part I've probably had the hardest time accepting - just exactly how much I
didn't know about myself. We take personality tests every couple of years here at work & while many of my core traits have remained the same, there is also a marked change in areas that reflect my relationship to Self. It's noticeable to others in ways I can't control too - when my best friend visited last summer we hadn't seen each other in years. She marveled at how nothing has really changed & yet I somehow look completely different at the same time.
It's because I've spent 5 years unbecoming everything I was never meant to be in the first place & I'm quite literally shedding layers as I grow.