Before you decide to step into another relationship, another person to make you feel whole, let’s take a look at why you’re not feeling whole alone, and why looking upon that matters!
It’s not easy to grow up reading books, watching movies, plays, and shows that promote the idea that we are halves, as human beings. We grow up listening to fairy tales about how Cinderella found a Prince Charming, and everything fell into place. We became teenagers, and grownups started asking us whether we had found ‘the one’? The one who will make you feel complete, and who will fix everything with ease. Whether you are a woman or a man, most likely your perception of a soulmate is someone who gets the most absurd parts of you yet fulfills the parts where you ‘lack’ as a person.
What happens next? We become adults ourselves, and we see that nothing is as easy as they made it seem. We come to discover that we are all people with flaws, personal experiences, traumas, issues as well as communication problems. Well, especially communication problems. It costs us the world to forgive, to say things out loud instead of waiting for our partner to just guess what we’re thinking, or to find some common ground between one another. Communication problems are ongoing around the whole world. Mainly because people do not work on themselves first, before jumping into relationships and investing in new individuals.
Spoiler Alert: There’s No Other Half
Although old traditional romantics will probably consider me a Grinch of the Valentine’s. I am sorry to say that I do not believe in the idea of the other half. But you know what I believe in? I believe in compatibility, respect, honesty, meaningful conversations, and sincere feelings. Yet again, it is hard to have a decent, sincere feeling with other people, if you’ve never really been honest with yourself first. It’s hard to get to know another person, become anxious about what they might think of you, anticipate their call and their texts –- because you haven’t really gotten to know yourself well enough. To hang out with your loneliness for a little bit, find out who you are, how you like your eggs, and what is your favorite song to cry to.
Quite often, when we look back, we realize that the persons we have dated weren’t really what we were looking for at all. But we were madly in love – not necessarily with him or her, but with the idea of being loved. I tend to think that this is what happens when you completely give yourself up to your relationship, leaving no room for each of you to breathe.
If there’s something that makes people grow dull with each other, that is liking the same exact things, doing the same things, sharing the same things, and having absolutely nothing that characterizes you individually, without your partner. Someone would go to that extent and say: hey, but isn’t that your soulmate? When you do and feel practically everything together?
In my opinion, no! My idea of a soulmate is of a person who actually watches you grow, change, and become the best version of yourself, by having maybe completely different opinions from the ones you had yesterday. They watch you experience life dynamically, in diverse ways, doing your very own rituals and having some sort of a personal routine that is different from the one of your partner, but they love it and they praise you for that. It’s easy for someone to be called your other half when your qualities are completely the same. But I think partners that can notice each other change, partners that don’t necessarily rely on or share everything, those are the ones that can cultivate love and understanding, gradually and mutually, because they respect the holy need for space.
Besides, we’re living in the post (post) modern times. Relationships are not the ‘forever ever’ and ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunities that they used to be, and that is totally ok. So we have to learn to be whole and feel sufficient in order to be able to survive during breakups, as well as times of being single. But bear in mind that once you’ll start aiming for self-sufficiency and time for yourself, you’ll be able to bring this practice into your relationship as well. And boy, how healthy that will be, for both of you!
Photo: LightField Studios/shutterstock.com
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