Why You Don’t Need a Better Half

A part of growing up and growing older in life is starting on the journey of trying to find your significant other. Chasing that feeling of new love can be quite addictive and if we’re being totally honest, there’s nothing that quite compares. But what if that feeling isn’t happening to you? Does that mean your life is instantly over and you’re worthless as a person? Well, quite the opposite.

Whether you want to stick to the “better half” trope or consider your partner someone who “completes” you, most of our conceptions about love are based on the wrong premise that we’re only half a person somehow. That without someone to share our life with, we’ll never reach more than 50% of our potential. Deep down, we all know that this is factually wrong. In fact, this also implies that you somehow would stop being an individual when you get into a relationship, but your life is now a part in service of the whole. Again, this is simply factually wrong. There’s no reason why you should have to lose yourself or compromise on who you want to be once you start a relationship with someone.

So whether you’re spending your energy living a single life or trying to make a long-term relationship work (which anyone will tell you isn’t easy in the least), there’s a few things you should always keep in the back of your head. If you feel like one of these things isn’t possible for you, there’s a very real chance that your “better half” might just be making you worse.

First of all, you want to remember what your goals in life are. That doesn’t mean you have to reach all of them in the short term, but you do need to have the mental freedom to be able to work towards them somewhat. And no, your goals do not all have to be things you want to achieve in your relationship or with your partner. You can have goals that would apply to a future with and without that person alike. In fact, it’s healthy to have those.

Another thing to keep in mind is that your friends and family will always come first. Putting all your energy into a relationship is an easy trap to fall into, but you should never lose sight of the people that were there before your relationship and will be there after your relationship. It really doesn’t take that much effort to text people and meet up every once in a while.

The last thing you should really, really keep an eye on is having your own hobbies. There’s nothing more unhealthy for a relationship than trying to do everything together all the time. You’re both your own person and nobody is forcing you to like or pretend to like whatever the other person is doing. Just support each other and give your partner some freedom to do their own thing and your relationship will last a lot longer.