Should Your Partner Complete or Complement You?
Joshua Tree 2015. Walking alone and 100% happy about it.
Your partner should complement you not complete you.
Do you believe you need a partner to become whole and to experience your greatest happiness?
My answer?
No.
I don’t believe for one second there is someone out there that is my other half and that when we’re together, he makes me whole.
It’s not that I have a cynical viewpoint on love. It’s that instead, I believe there is someone out there who when we’re together, we make each other better.
In my opinion, a relationship should be two people who show up as their entire selves who work together to make each other better, not to complete each other. As Peter Crone says, your partner should complement you, not complete you. I honestly love that more than anything because I feel it holds so much truth.
I often get asked why I’ve been single for as long as I have, like something is wrong with me. And until recently, I didn’t have a clear answer as to why, which made me feel like they were right…something must be wrong with me!
I now am able to realize it’s not that anything is wrong with me, it’s that I’m living in a world where people aren’t whole within themselves and they believe for anyone to be happy and complete, they need a partner.
But look at how many unhappy relationships and unhappy people there are in the world. Shouldn’t that make us question the idea of having someone complete us?
What if we stopped focusing on someone else completing us, and instead we focused on completing ourselves?
When I shifted to looking at a very serious relationship I was in through this viewpoint, I realized I hadn’t been living as my true self. I was living as a person I thought my partner would love more, but wasn’t actually me.
And this was the reason why I was not only unhappy in the relationship, but unhappy with myself.
So once I started living as my true self, it quickly became apparent that my partner was not making me better, he was actually holding me back from being better.
This revealed to me the realness of the fact that it’s difficult to enter into and be in a healthy relationship when both sides are not happy and complete on their own.
Since then, I’ve been working hard to figure out who I actually am, who I want to become, and the path that will take me there. If I don’t know this on my own, how do I know who I should end up with? I’ll end up living a life that’s not meant for me.
Now when people ask me why I’m still single, I respond by saying, “I haven’t found anyone who makes me better.” And when they ask me what kind of guy I’m looking for, I say, “Someone who makes me better.” It’s as simple as that.
So if you are currently single, here are some questions for you to ponder:
What if you stopped searching for someone to complete you and started working on completing yourself?
Why are you unhappy being single and fear being alone?
Can you sit with the feeling of loneliness and use it as a tool for figuring out where you are not free within yourself?
Where does your deep-rooted belief that “you’ll be happier when you’re in a relationship” stem from?
Why do you believe it isn’t possible to experience happiness on your own?
And if you are currently in a relationship but feel either unhappy within yourself or unhappy in the relationship, here are some questions for you to ponder…
How much of your happiness is reliant on aspects outside of yourself?
Why are you placing your happiness on anything outside of yourself?
Do you know who you are or the person you want to be?
Does your relationship align with who you are or who you want to be?
Does your partner make you better?
I’m not going to postpone my happiness until I meet the person who makes me better. That is a waste of my precious life. I’m going to live my life so when the time comes, I’m able to show up as my whole self ready to make them a better person, too.