The other half

The other day I met up with an old friend who I hadn’t seen in a couple of years. We live on different continents so when we meet up, there’s a lot to catch up on. We talked about our kids and parenting and life in general in our respective ends of the world. At a certain point the topic of relationships came up. “Aren’t you lonely?”and “Don’t you miss having someone in your life?”, were some of the questions he asked. You see, I’ve been single for a couple of years now and the way society’s set up, that’s something that needs fixing. “Nope, I’m not lonely…like not at all. I’m not missing anyone right now. My life is actually really good”, I answered. He proceeded to ask what I’d want in a partner, so I named a few things and then said, “Oh, one thing that’s a really big turn off for me is a guy who wants me to pamper him. I’m just not the pampering type, you know?! I can’t ‘baby’ a grown man.” He looked at me with a hint of pity and said “You’re almost like a guy, life has made you hard.. you say you don’t need anyone and now you don’t want to take care of your man either?”. The words ‘hard’ and ‘like a guy’ sounded so absurd, I started to laugh but on the other hand I was fascinated about his choice of words. Did not being needy for someone and not wanting to ‘pamper’ a grown man, make me ‘hard’? Was being happy with your life and yourself, by yourself, considered a privilege reserved only for men? As we continued our conversation, he explained it would probably be challenging for me to find someone, because I was too whole and didn’t seem to be in need of another half, and for men it was key to feel wanted and needed.

“Looking for your other half”, referring to your partner as your “better half”, “becoming one” when you get married, are all sayings that perpetuate the idea that we need someone other than ourselves in our lives in order to be okay or to fully matter in society. Remember how Tom Cruise had everybody swooning when Jerry Maguire told Dorothy she completed him? Yesss, everybody including me. Now why is that? It’s because we are conditioned to look and want for someone to complete us. Finding someone and being in a relationship is the story we’re spoon-fed from the time we are born. That is the how-it’s-supposed-to-be-picture for all us. From the time we’re little we hear and read stories about princes coming to the rescue and about sweet innocent girls being swept off their feet and marrying their prince charming so they can live happily ever after. We’re conditioned to look for and find love in another and are taught to believe that without the other, happily ever after isn’t possible nor real, and that feeling complete all by yourself is weird, not normal and off in some way. So we look for love, often times desperately, jumping from one relationship to another. We get into relationships hoping to find love, hoping to be seen and valued, not realising that we can only find in relationships that which we bring to the relationship. This pertains to everything! We have to bring our love, our integrity, our worthiness, our commitment, our hope, our happiness, our dreams, our honesty, our patience, our understanding, our compassion and our responsibility with us, for it to be present in the relationship. Consequently, whatever we are lacking will also be lacking in the relationship. How could it be otherwise?

“I don’t trust people who don’t love themselves and yet tell me, ‘I love you.’ There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.” ~ Maya Angelou

Lets also not forget the fact that we unconsciously attract to us who we are. We attract or draw to us those who we’re energetically aligned with. We attract to us those who are going to mirror to us exactly who we are and where we are in life. Our partners will reflect back to us exactly those parts and aspects of ourselves that need to be made conscious, that need healing. And we, of course, will return the favour. If your issue is with low self-esteem, you will actually draw to you exactly those people and experiences that will bring up that low self-esteem. If your partner has a trust issue, you were attracted to allow him/her to work on that trust issues. The relationships we attract are for this very reason: to make us aware of, and give us an opportunity to work on our issues. Relationships are where we go in order to do the most learning, healing and growing. They are the most important of classrooms.

Now imagine the kinds of relationships we’re creating when we consider ourselves ‘half’ and haven’t taken the time to self-reflect, self-observe, self-question and self-examine. Imagine the kinds of relationships we’re creating when we have no self-awareness, no self-knowledge, no self-esteem, no self-worth, no self-confidence, no self-respect and no self-love. Imagine relationships in which all we seem to do is (unintentionally) hurt each other because we’re unconsciously driven by our wounds, patterns, conditioning, egoic needs, fears, insecurities and what not.

Hurt people, hurt people ~ Sandra D. Wilson

When you read it like that, it might sound gloomy, hopeless and maybe even too pessimistic, but how hard was it actually to imagine? Or was it even hard at all? I mean, isn’t this what we see all around us? Relationships that are in serious trouble? Or can you name a couple you consider to have the perfect relationship? Tell me, how many good, healthy, mature and grounded relationships have you witnessed in your life? For most people the answer would be none. The majority of relationships are unhealthy, dysfunctional and toxic in varying degrees, but because it’s the majority, unhealthy, dysfunctional and toxic have sadly enough become the norm. Let’s take jealousy for instance. It’s considered very normal when a man is jealous of his partner and it often even gets romanticised, because doesn’t it mean he really loves her? In reality, jealousy often has to do with feelings of low self-esteem, insecurity and inadequacy. People hide those feelings and try to control people so they don’t have to feel those feelings by exhibiting jealous behaviour. Another behaviour that’s considered normal is overextending oneself. More often than not this is an issue girls and women deal with. They overextend themselves, they give too much, they do too much, they exhaust themselves and are praised for giving their all, for being so good. In reality people who do this often do so because they struggle with feelings of unworthiness, low self-esteem and no self-love. They do so to please others, they do so in the hope of being seen, valued, loved and to feel like they matter.

Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person ~ Gloria Steinem

So, am I saying you have to be perfect before you think about getting into a relationship? Of course not, there is no such thing as perfect and certain lessons can only be learned within a relationship. But I am definitely saying you shouldn’t expect to experience or have that which wasn’t brought into the relationship in the first place. I am absolutely saying that in order to have a healthy relationship, you as well as your partner would have had to cultivate certain aspects, characteristics and qualities within yourselves first. You can’t expect to relate to another on a deep and intimate level when you don’t know how to relate to yourself. You can’t have a soul connection with someone who isn’t connected to his- or herself. You can’t have a relationship based on trust and honesty when you and/or your partner never took off your masks. Only that which we already have within ourselves, only that which we already are, can we bring with us and are we able to share with others. I’m also saying that maybe we ought to make sure that what get’s reflected back to us is something good. Maybe our best chance of having a conscious and healthy relationship is if we ourselves are as conscious and healthy as we can be, before we enter into a relationship. I’m saying that maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t go looking for your other half because when it comes to relationships, two halves don’t make a whole.

Like I said, we don’t have to be perfect, we don’t have to have it all already figured out, but relationships are the most important classrooms and I think that if we as students are better prepared for class, we might just have a real chance of finally and truly getting it right.