Catherine Chea Bryce

Finding inspiration ☁️🌈🌸

The relationship paradox

1280px-van_gogh_-_starry_night_-_google_art_project

I feel like I’m having a weird eureka moment as if I solved a math equation.

It’s difficult for me to admit how much emotional validation I seek, and this is likely the underlying reason for my desires to enter a relationship. I also realize, based on my experiences and talking to other people, that people who feel they need a relationship are dependent in some way: whether they need sex, emotional validation, or both. The drawback with this is that this becomes a vicious cycle: the more dependent and needier you are, more people are repelled by this, which only exacerbates the situation.

The solution, of course, it to be a self-sustaining and emotionally independent person. I think the irony of that is that once you become independent, you won’t have a need to enter a relationship. So why bother? Maybe relationships are just add-ons and nice things to have that we don’t need.

(The romantic in me is dying for admitting this.)

But we can’t deny that even if we’re independent, we still need community and society to give us context for attributing meaning to our lives. For instance, the very fact that I am using language to communicate these thoughts shows that I’m dependent on our society and culture to help substantiate my values and beliefs.

I think we’re like individual components in a larger chain. If we don’t take responsibility for our independent roles, we’d fall apart from the chain that’s holding us together and sustaining us. As well, by being independent, we’d have a better capacity to contribute to society; and, in return, have more meaning in life.

Side note: I recently watched Loving Vincent and I’m in love with the film. It’s the world’s first fully painted animated film about the life of the painter Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh lived a challenging life, but there’s so much beauty in it. Although he wanted to break free from society and be a loner, his contribution is timeless and is felt through his paintings and works. In the grand scheme of things, he truly has his place here even if he felt like he didn’t belong. By being independent and pursuing his passions, he was able to create great works of art for the world to admire.

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6 responses to “The relationship paradox”

  1. Sufwan Avatar
    Sufwan

    Interesting article.
    I always felt that no matter how emotionally independent a person becomes there will always be a part of everyone that still desires companionship.

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    1. Catherine Avatar
      Catherine

      I totally agree with you. I think everyone desires companionship. The difference with the emotionally independent person is that their happiness does not depend on others. They’re okay with being single. And this makes a foundation for a healthy relationship.

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      1. Sufwan Avatar
        Sufwan

        Oh now I get it.

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  2. Sufwan Avatar
    Sufwan

    Thanks! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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  3. Karol Avatar
    Karol

    This problem demands to be deepened. Before else the question is posed if a person can give herself to another, since we verified that any person is, by essence, inalienable, alteri incommunicabilis. Therefore not only master of herself (sui iuris), but not even can she alienate or give herself. The nature of the person opposes itself to the gift of herself.

    But what is not possible, nor conforming to the rule, in the order of nature and in the physical sense, can take place in the order of love and in the moral sense. It is here that a person can give herself to another, to man or God, and thanks to this gift a particular form of love is created, that we’ll call spousal love.

    Effectively, there is a paradox in the problem of spousal love, a paradox not only verbal but intrinsically real;(…)

    So the most complete love is expressed precisely in the gift of oneself, in the fact of giving in complete property this “self” inalienable and incommunicable. The paradox is double and goes both ways: first, that one can leave his “self” and, second, that by doing so you don’t destroy or devalue your self but, on the contrary, develope and enrich, evidently in extrinsically, moral sense.

    The gift of one self, as a form of love, sprouts from the deepth of a person with a clear vision of values and availability of will to give herself precisely in this way.

    in “Love and Responsability”, by Karol Wojtyla, 1960.

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    1. Catherine Avatar
      Catherine

      Thank you for sharing this deep passage. I’ll be sure to read the rest of the book. 🙂

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