A Healthy Relationship Needs a Healthy You
Are we judging ourselves before others judge us? In a relationship, do we even know ourselves well enough to declare that after one coffee date, ‘he is not for me’. I’ve seen many of my friends go through the nebulous courtship process, some to marry, some come away single. When we embark upon this quest to find a mate, we really don’t know ourselves all that well anyway, so judging a mate by the first date is really a judgment of ourselves. When I got engaged, I put the breaks on setting a wedding date. I told my fiancé, “but wait, I was supposed to travel and live in Manhattan by myself for a year, and I don’t see how that is going to happen!’. I was certain that the travel plans I’d secretly made for myself would be my self -discovery. After all, society prods us to consider that we don’t really know ourselves until we move away from our nest, right? But when those college days pass, and you haven’t found your ‘someone special’, it takes a lot of emotional energy to meet someone. Unless you share interests, where else do Muslim Americans meet one another? Work? Online? Social gatherings?
With societal pressures to ‘date but not date’, parents and young adults alike are scrambling to find meaningful ways to arrange meet-ups, legendary introductions, both accidental and quite intentional. Our American society has also romanticized the dating ritual, the hunt and the pursuit, and as a result, has created some extremely high and often unreasonable expectations held by both men and women. These hopes lead right into marriage, as men anticipate they’ll marry chaste women and be entertained with (let’s be honest) “fireworks” on their wedding night. Going through this emotional roller coaster that is the ‘dating’ / getting to know you phase can easily sideswipe you if you do not have a strong sense of self . Worse yet, you could end up in a dishonest relationship. Do you really like that guy or because he’s nice to you, you’re being nice back to him? As an aside, I’d like to point out that young girls and boys who don’t have access to or are withheld from receiving medically accurate sexual health education risk beginning their relationship at a severe disadvantage. If left unresolved, this situation can lead to many physical and emotional problems within the marriage. And as a personal plug, HEART Women & Girls provides these workshops and trainings.
Being in a healthy relationship is as much about yourself as it is the other person. We say, ‘marriage completes us’. Yet in order to complete what is missing, do you really know who you are, what makes you happy and what your life goals are? Are you taking steps to seek those goals within the comfort of your relationship? My husband and I have been married for almost 15 years. We respect each other’s independence, which allows each of us the ability to preserve our self -growth and meet our personal goals. Very often, in a marriage you will hear that after a woman becomes a mother she ‘forgets herself’ and becomes disconnected with herself and eventually her family. In a recent HEART workshop for mothers and daughters, a mother said to me during our goal-setting session that she wants to be able to take a girls vacation and not feel guilty about it from her daughters or husband. She was shocked yet comforted when I didn’t flinch at her idea and in fact told her that I’ve been doing that for years. I think a girl’s vacation is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself, and it was my husband’s idea!
The most value you can give to another person in a relationship is the real you. Know yourself before you give yourself away. As cliché as it may sound, it’s the truth. If you don’t love yourself for your faults, your quirks, your likes and dislikes, no one will love you. If you can’t love yourself, you can’t love another person.
