The myth of the perfect partner
Transcendent happiness isn’t about who you both are in the beginning. It’s about giving yourselves a chance to figure out who you’re going to become.
Here’s a secret:
The things we’re taught about true love completely miss the point. We grow up hearing that there’s some magically perfect person out there — already fully formed and meant just for us — and we’re utterly perfect for them. We’re prepared as kids for this grown-up mission to go out and hunt for this perfect being and try to convince them that we’re perfect for them.
If we fail and this perfect union doesn’t magically materialize, we’re told it’s on us. We picked wrong. Or maybe it’s on them — they just weren’t the one. Either way, we’re left believing that all we can do is nurse our wounds until we’re strong enough to return to hunting for that elusive perfect being.
Only that’s not how it works.
Yes, it’s an incredible experiene to find someone who clicks with us in a hundred ways — who sees the world in ways we’ve always hungered to describe, and who values the things we believe ought to be valued, and whose sparkling eyes and striking face send a ripple of electricity through us in ways we can’t deny or forget.
But that’s only a starting point.
True love, it’s taken me all these years to realize, isn’t about being “perfect” for each other. It’s not about impressing each other or having everything figured out on day one. It’s not about one person rescuing or saving the other.
It’s about helping each other grapple with the strange and complicated experience of confronting who we really are and striving to become who we yearn to be before our all-too-brief lives are over. In its very best incarnation, it’s about taking turns being strong, taking turns doing the saving and taking time to actually see — in all our beautiful imperfection — exactly who the other person is today and tomorrow and the day after.
It’s about telling the truth and keeping your word.
It’s about inspiring each other and not being afraid to need each other, and it’s about getting lost and getting found and finding ways to keep on seeing each other amid the maelstrom of kids and bills and work and aging parents and basements that flood and travel that can exhaust you even as it awes you.
It’s not about perfection. It’s about daring to be our best imperfect selves, and showering each other with so much love that even the deepest, darkest places become possible to navigate.
And here’s the thing:
Loving yourself comes before any of it. You are worth prioritizing. So stick with your journey in spite of the fear it can sometimes strikes in you. Know yourself, respect your boundaries and spend your time with people who are willing to do the same. I know of no other path to that life-changing, soul-affirming love that all those Prince Charming stories falsely promised us.
Melissa Rayworth is a writer and editor exploring pieces of daily life — the homes we live in, the ways we pursue our relationships and raise our children, the ways we attempt to balance work and home, and the impact of pop culture and marketing on our daily experience — in hopes of helping readers understand their world more fully. She currently does her storytelling from Pittsburgh and New York after three inspiring years in Bangkok. Find a collection of her stories here.
©2018, Melissa Rayworth