Forget  searching for your perfect husband or perfect wife. Forget searching for your ‘better half’.  ‘The One  and Only’ who will fix all your problems and eradicate your pain.

Sadly they don’t exist and this plan is flawed.

Usually people end up dating or marrying  replicas of their parents, or what they first think are the exact opposites of their parents, because the relationship just feels so… natural. These ‘History Repeating’ relationships have varied endings, depending on what people learnt about love and relationships from their own parents. Sometimes people attract partners with attributes, skills or talents that they admire and want for themselves. Eventually they can end up hating these partners for having that very same thing they so admired in the beginning. I call this the classic ‘Love-Hate’ relationship.  In essence, very similar to a ‘Jigsaw’ relationship, where partners are carefully chosen to help create a perfect life that the individual believes that he/she cannot create alone. When ‘Opposites Attract’ usually people chose the other half because the other half has something that the first person is missing, but that the first person does not necessarily want that something for themselves. Other times people may attract carbon copies of themselves, someone so similar that they click instantly and strongly. These ‘Mirror’ relationships seem so easy in the beginning because the two people person understand each other so well. But eventually these relationships can also turn sour because people cannot tolerate their partner’s faults because these faults are in fact the same as their own faults, and there’s Nothing Wrong With Me!!!

After a while some people notice emerging patterns in their failed relationships. Patterns repeated, over and over, sometimes dressed up a little differently, such as, choosing a brunette when before choosing blondes, but essentially the same type of relationship and same type of partner. ‘The Loser’, ‘The Abuser’, ‘The Player’, ‘The Strayer’ are common labels that emerge. The question is always: when will ‘The Stayer’ appear?

Good News!! You already have at your own disposal, all the answers to your problems, all the resources you need, and all the strength required to get what you want. You don’t necessarily need your other ‘half’ when you have a ‘full‘ you just under the surface.

‘The One’ you are searching for is YOU. Before you look outwardly for a partner, for your other half, you must look inwardly at yourself. To your soul, your spirit, your essence. Here within, you will find  answers,  guidance, and motivation. Your inner self inherently knows, and has always known, what is right for you. It won’t always lead you along the easiest path, for things are never easy in this world. Life is difficult. Duh! But getting in touch with your inner core, your soul, your heart, your psyche, what ever terminology you prefer, provides vital knowledge about yourself. Knowing yourself better, knowing your triggers, knowing your secret dreams and desires, knowing your pain and your faults, all of it. Good and Bad. Dark and Light. Self knowledge is golden, illuminating your way through life. Helping you see the world clearly. Helping you see yourself clearly, and building self-confidence, while treading the path to achieve your hopes and dreams. Satisfaction.  Happiness.  Success.  Achievement. Whatever your heart desires!

And with self-knowledge comes trust. You  begin to trust yourself. Trust your decisions because you made an educated choice. Trust your body to signal  what  it needs to improve health and vitality. Trust your emotions because you know your triggers and can predict your reactions. Trust your thoughts because you know which ones to ignore and which ones to follow. Our mind can play tricks on us!

Once you know yourself well, can accept both your shadow and light sides,  by developing yourself from the inside out, and growing in self-love – only then will you attract the partner that is perfect for you.  Not the perfect partner, but the partner that is perfect for you.

When you can look yourself in the mirror, peering deeply into your own eyes without flinching, then you are on the path to achieving self acceptance and self-love. Only when you begin accepting yourself and loving yourself, will you attract a partner that accepts you and loves you fully, in that until-death-do-us-part type of love.

Think about this: How can you expect anyone else to love you unless you love yourself first? Frankly, there’s not many Mother Theresa type humans out there that are totally capable of unconditional love, so why do you expect your partner to do something for you that you cannot yet do for yourself?

Finding a partner perfect for you involves:

1. Working on yourself
2. Becoming the  best possible version of yourself
3. Then finding a partner that matches who you are in essence at that deep soul level.

Please note the five categories  (History Repeating, Love-Hate, Jigsaw, Opposites Attract, and Mirror) of relationships are my own personal observations,  derived from common labels, and based very loosely around the psychology of couples and relationships.

By Monica Jakovich

Become a Possible Being