Values in a Relationship

Alice D
Alice D
Nov 2 · 4 min read

I feel like most people including myself has called or referred to their partner as their other “half” atleast at one point or another. But with anything in life, I feel like this pursuit can never be fulfilling enough. When you feel like you are not complete without your partner or that there is a perfect soulmate out there, then you can become idealizing for something that is not achievable, especially if you cannot put in the work yourself, or have unhealthy expectations..

I’m going to Segway this into the saying “You have to love yourself before people can love you”… Now I feel this is a bit harsh but not necessarily true. Although, bare with me (this will be long) I feel it could be interpreted as “You must be your whole complete self and know yourself, so you can let another healthy whole person in and share each self together. This means a healthy relationship the brings out the best in eachother with equal sides, not making your partner responsible for your happiness.

All of this brings me to what I feel are some of the important values I have learned while trying to cope with my borderline personality disorder (BPD). My briefest possible explanation to why this is relevant, is that BPD is a mental illness often stigmatized as being unstable in sense of self as well as unstable relationships… I’ve often seen BPD referred to as crazy bitch disorder or many people attributing a shitty relationship to a “probably borderline ex”.

Now when I first received my diagnosis I was about 6 months into my first serious relationship. At the time the stigma rang true to me, I felt shame, guilt, and chronically empty. This lead to big insecurities and abandonment issues, and I became unhealthily attached to my partner depending my happiness on him. I began hypersensitive to every interaction with him, often crying and breaking down at night because I read too seriously and negatively into our interactions.

This soon became overbearing on my partner, and the sadness became misunderstandings which became bickering, arguing, soon name calling and manipulation, mostly on my part. My toxic habits as well as my partners avoidance of my problem was not healthy for either of us. I was over confrontational and he was avoidant, and we did not understand eachother. The shame and guilt grew as I knew we both need to grow and I felt he deserved better. In the end, we went separate ways. Not without a messy breakup of course… One that lead to a seriously hard look at myself.


Today, I am currently in what I feel is a healthy fulfilling relationship. My partner is my best friend and I feel that I am thriving as my own person. As simple as these values may seem I’ve realized that the biggest values when it comes to thriving in a relationship for me are: trust, honest equal communication, forgiveness, and compatible personality.

Trust

This means an over all positive and realistic view of your partner. You give them the benefit of the doubt. You are not controlling as you trust them to make their own decisions. Understanding they are their own person and it is not a rejection or reflection of you if they have an opposing thought/ feeling.

Honest Communication

Don’t say it behind their back, if you wouldn’t say it to their face (exceptions for surprises or presents or positive things). Ability to work out compromise, give/take. Argue productively, it is US versus THE PROBLEM, not ME versus YOU. Patience and understanding (back to trust).

Forgiveness

This is similar to trust in which you give your partner the benefit of the doubt (of course if they say sorry and do the same thing over and over again, you need to draw a line) But over all, this value has to do with acceptance and willingness to work over and past the issue rather than ovoid or forget about it. Once again this also deals with trust because you understand that they are their own person who will make their own decisions, and it is not a reflection of who you are.

Compatible personality

This one is not really a value but rather knowing what values are important to you and what values you need to have in your life. For example, they say opposites attract, now I don’t completely believe this, but at the same time, if both partners are the exact same, it is hard to grow together as both would have the same weaknesses and set backs (e.g: two introverts too shy to order the food at the restaurant). At the same time, when you are too different, it’s harder to understand eachother. This is where is has to do with what values matter to you. To sum it up, I think it works best as: If you couldn’t see yourself being friends with them, it’s hard to make it work with only romance/infatuation.

Alice D

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Alice D

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