DAY 23 OF 30 OF THE APRIL RELATIONSHIP WRITING CHALLENGE
We Are Secure In Our Own Identity, We Don’t Need Each Other To Make Ourselves Happy
Although it is an added bonus to have found our love
We certainly make the other one happy. If we didn’t, then why would we even be together? Today’s response to Susie’s challenge for the 23rd of April is about not needing the other to be happy. We need to learn to love ourselves before we can truly love others.
I feel that this is very true when it comes to relationships. If you were looking for a relationship the whole time to make you happy, getting into one might’ve made you happy temporarily but not completely and that relationship would be doomed to fail. I was in a situation in my 20s where I struggled to find a strong sense of identity and self-love.
I was depressed mostly and just tried to conform to the popular opinions of the time. I had some idea of how I really thought and felt but I never fully vocalized it before I came out in my late 20s. The path to finding my way out of the closet was a huge contributor to me finding my voice and my identity going into my 30s and living a healthier and happier adult life.
Sure, it’s not perfect and I still have things to work on but I didn’t lean on Mike to discover myself or find my voice and my happiness to make it happen. Would I be sad if I lost my partner, though? Of course, I sure would. Does that mean that my happiness was only hinging on him? No.
When you love someone and lose them, it’s obviously a traumatic and heartbreaking experience. That doesn’t mean that being with them in the first place is the only thing to lean your happiness on. I think that if I had found Mike earlier in my life before I had things figured out, that may have been poor timing and in that case, I probably shouldn’t have entered into a relationship with him.
The fact that I was starting to find myself and my voice is enough to say that I was ready to share that with someone else and I didn’t just enter that relationship to be in a relationship or to not feel unhappy.
Mike has already been on his self-discovery mission. He has long passed it, even before I met him just before his 26th birthday. I could feel his presence. He had a very strong sense of self and his identity. He didn’t need me to make him happy. I just did. That’s how we knew that this would work. That’s how we knew this would fit.
We couldn’t enter into a relationship expecting the other person to be the only source of joy in our lives. If you’ve already found yourself and know yourself and you don’t have that somebody, I sure hope you find that person someday. Enter a relationship not to have something that makes you happy if you’re not, you should enter a relationship that makes you happy and you’re already happy but it just feels right.
Deb Palmer, Karen Schwartz, Ruby Noir, Denise Kendig, Keeley Schroder, Marlana, MSW, and Susie Winfield
