Brave New Kitty

Many people have the idea that when they find the right person they will feel whole. This idea is foisted on us in novels, movies and songs, and was expressed most directly in the movie Jerry Maguire when Tom Cruise tells Renee Zellweger, “You complete me.” And of course, she melts, and all her anger at this otherwise childish, self-absorbed person evaporates and they live happily ever.

Pardon my crudeness, but, gag me.

In the world of romantic relationships, two halves do not make a whole. No matter what the popular notions about this are, no matter how much people want to believe that the “right person” will complete them, no matter how many songs, stories, novels, poems, tv shows, movies, and advertisements tell us otherwise, it is simply not the case. When two half-people hook up and try to have a romantic relationship, the result can only be disastrous.

If a person is only “half-developed” in the sense of not having undertaken the difficult work of healing from emotional wounds, what will the relationship look like? The most common pattern is for a person whose lack of healing causes her to be insecure to hook up with someone whose lack of healing causes him (or her) to be emotionally aloof. Both are acting out of neediness, one externalizing and one internalizing (although this is somewhat of a simplification), and when they first meet there is indeed a sense of completion, which can be extremely powerful when you are operating from a place of deficit. In fact, this is often what causes that intoxicating feeling of early “love.” But what happens in the day-to-day grind of being present for a partner when you haven’t yet learned to be present for yourself? We all know, because we’ve all been there at least once: a feeling of loneliness far more unbearable than the loneliness of being by yourself. And it goes downhill from there.

This sense of completion common in early romantic relationships has almost nothing to do with love. Yet sadly, this feeling is exactly what most people are looking for. They’re fooled into believing it is love by popular sentiment and their own longing. The truth is, in the world of romantic partnerships, there is no such thing as a white knight, as being rescued, as being completed by another person. These are all highly skewed notions of what a good relationship is all about.

In The Power of Myth series, Joseph Campbell described romantic love more accurately than anything else I’ve heard. He called it “an ordeal.” It is not for the faint-hearted or needy, who simply do not have the fortitude to stay present with another human being in the trenches, which, as one of the most difficult, stressful, exhausting, frustrating undertakings imaginable, is what romantic love demands. Of course, it is also one of the most rewarding ones, which is why it gets so much attention. The rewards just tend to not be what most people think they are. In fact, if most people understood the true nature of a love relationship and the emotional demands it would make on them, they would probably run as fast as they could in the opposite direction! (The same goes for parenthood, but that is another topic.)

Romantic love is, at its best, a partnership of two equals whose melding creates a whole greater than its parts, a connection and a synergy that didn’t exist before. But this is not a wholeness that can develop between two people operating from a place of deficit and neediness, which, when put together, only makes a greater deficit and more neediness. No, this is a wholeness borne of strength. And also fortitude, willingness, patience, empathy, kindness, tenderness, forgiveness, and so much more. If you view love as a way to fill an emptiness inside yourself, it is unlikely you’ll have many of these necessary traits. Better to forego romance for awhile and work on developing them in yourself; the long-term results will be vastly more satisfying.

This is not to say that a person must be “cured” of all her humanness before being capable of real romance. If that were true, romantic love would be nonexistent. But for a relationship to work, both people ought to have a few things figured out: you don’t have to be completely free of emotional baggage, but you do have to know how to deal with it on your own, and take responsibility for it when it rears its ugly head in the relationship. And ideally, you’ll have dispelled all your notions about romantic love whisking you away from yourself and curing all your pain and problems because, in reality, it merely provides another avenue to confront all that messy, uncomfortable, scary stuff that you were hoping to avoid. (Which kind of explains a lot if you think about it, doesn’t it?)

Ironically, when needy people seek completion in another person, their impulse is correct; they just get the execution wrong. The wholeness they intuitively seek can only be found by looking inside themselves. Looking for it externally is largely an avoidance tactic, and will keep them stuck in that place of deficit they’re so unwilling to face. Sadly, sometimes for a lifetime.

The desire for completion is a natural human drive and nothing to be ashamed of, but if you don’t understand that what you’re looking for can only be found within, then your thinking about love will be forever skewed, and you will never find it or yourself, and that is truly a tragedy.