Written and verified by the psychologist GetPersonalGrowth.
Last update: 15 November 2021
To say that we don't need certain people to live is to deny the evidence. We all want to have our loved ones close to us every day, the people who are important to us, with whom we can have fun, share moments, joys, happiness and sorrows.
The word "need" must be based on a healthy, not suffocating bond, which first of all allows personal development and the existence of a private space for the other person. We all need those we love, but, at the same time, we must protect our individuality and encourage the development of that of others.
I learned that I can smile without you, that I can walk my paths without following in your footsteps, that I can grow without you losing faith in me. I don't want to put my happiness in your hands, I want to offer myself to you freely, to join our joys and live in harmony.
Such phrases are often found in certain books, in manuals on mature and happy couple relationships. In fact, we know that saying “I don't need you, but I prefer to be with you” is not easy, many people don't understand it.
It is simply a matter of knowing how to harmonize and build. To understand that living as a couple does not mean losing something, it does not mean waking up with the feeling that we are missing something, that we are losing our identity because of the other.
Living as a couple means being happy as we are individually, with the awareness of having chosen someone to get even more happiness and to grow as a person. If not, if we didn't feel that there is unity and balance on both sides, then it would mean that we are not forming a team, that we are losing, that our identity is crumbling.
Living in love or in dependence: the thin thread of happiness
If we love someone, we want them to be with us. We want a real commitment and his presence in our life. We need you to show us your affection every day through reciprocity, the magic of those small details that are able to build entire lives.
Saying that we need reciprocity in love does not mean being addicted, but wanting to receive what one invests in. In addictive relationships, you need the other person as much as you need yourself and more. In this case, necessity is synonymous with domination and attachment, not equality.
The thin thread of happiness, at times, depends on this simple difference that brings so many complications to life as a couple; here are some of them:
The danger of completely merging with each other
We love so much, that we come to completely merge with our beloved. What is yours is mine, your worries are mine, your sadnesses are pains for my heart ...
Of course, we can't deny the fact that having a relationship involves commitment, it requires you to solve problems and cope with difficulties together, to take care of each other. Should there be a limit? Yes of course.
- It is clear that we would do anything for our partner, but we must be careful not to lose our balance and our identity.
- To love does not mean walking on a suspended thread blindfolded, guided only by our partner.
- We have the right to choose, decide and express our opinion; thinking differently shouldn't take us away from our partner. We can love similarities and respect differences: it is not because of the latter that the balance will be broken.
- We must never allow our partner to make us question or give up on our values. They are part of our identity and if we lose them, a part of us will remain empty.
Don't go out of your way to keep each other whole
In reality, to live happily, we do not need great things: only love, intimacy, of respect and that complicity that becomes more and more clear in our eyes, which we desire and know each other. The people who need all this most have personal shortcomings and hope that others will solve or fill them.
Those who have many gaps and unsolved shortcomings look for saviors, loving angels who give them everything in exchange for nothing. That is precisely the moment when someone goes out of his way to fill all those abysses and loses its completeness.
It is said that if we try to heal a broken heart, we can be shattered too. For this reason, it is not good to cultivate the idea that we can change wounded people, that we have the power to make them happy again: if they are not happy thanks to themselves, it is difficult for someone else to make them happy overnight.
- Love should be an act of freedom in which there is no blackmail and where no one tries to alleviate loneliness or fill in spaces left by others.
- Love means living in an integral way with oneself and with the other. If we do not respect ourselves, if we are insecure, if we do not like what we see in our soul and what we feel in our thoughts, we will end up transmitting our torments to the other.
- No one has an obligation to heal someone else's wounds, to solve his dilemmas, to alleviate his nightmares in the nights of anguish; this would be slavery. It is necessary to offer oneself to the other mature, complete and fearless in order to be able to love fully, without deficiencies.
Love means humbly needing, but also allowing. It means wanting the best for each other, also looking for our happiness. It means building a duo, while remaining yourself. It means living with integrity, respecting our identity and holding the person we love by the hand.
Images courtesy of Mila Marquis and Pascal Campion
