Have you ever stopped one day to ask yourself: “Why would I want to be in a romantic relationship?”
Maybe it was after a devastating breakup that left you in pieces, or after a long list of failed relationships. Or maybe this entire game didn’t speak to you much and so you came to ask yourself that question.
Pondering over this question is a healthy step towards finding, building, and maintaining a healthy and long lasting relationship because it allows us to identify and dismiss the wrong reasons we have to get into a romantic relationship, and build for ourselves instead a healthy rationale for wanting to get involved with someone.
So what are some good reasons for being in an intimate relationship?
1 – Experience & Share Love
There is a special kind of love that we experience in loving healthy relationships: A kind of love that encompasses friendship, trust, commitment, passion, intimacy, deep connection & chemistry all at the same time.
You can have each individual component of this love with a separate person: Trust with a friend, intellectual connection with another, lust & desire with a one night stand, but having all of these types of love with the same person is only possible in the context of a healthy romantic relationship.
Not just that, but finding in your relationship someone you can trust and laugh with, someone you desire, and someone you connect with on a deep level creates a special kind of integral love that is greater than the sum of its parts.
And wanting to have and share that kind of love in your life is a perfectly fine reason for seeking a romantic relationship.
2 – Fulfill Your Values
An intimate relationship can provide a perfect environment for partners to pursue and live their values together.
If you get involved with someone with whom your share some of your top values and have a similar understanding of the world, not only you would be more compatible together, but you would also be able to pursue the things you care about with your significant other.
You will be having more of your awake time aligned with who you really are.
And that’s a perfectly healthy reason for engaging in a a relationship: To get the opportunity to further align our lives with what we really care about and become our true selves.
3- Grow & Heal
Even with all the introspection in the world, there are things you would only be able to discover about yourself through interacting with other people.
Getting to know yourself and gathering information about who you are is not only done in solitude through self-reflection, but it is also done through stepping out of your comfort zone and opening up to others. Only then will previously denied aspects of yourself begin to emerge.
This is especially true with intimate relationships.
Interacting with your partner in the context of a loving relationship can bring out all of your insecurities, past traumas, and unresolved issues from your childhood.
This is because your intimate relationship unconsciously reminds you of the first loving relationship you ever had in your life: The one with your parents.
Therefore, any repressed emotions, patterns, unhealthy behaviors & attachment styles you had during your childhood will play out yet again in your romantic relationship.
The difference is that now, you -hopefully- became a mature adult, and as a self-aware creature, you can notice these repressed aspects of yourself and address/integrate them in order to heal and become more whole.
Your intimate relationship is the perfect fertile ground for getting to know who you are, and with the right supportive & loving partner, both of you can heal and grow into new ways of being.
4 – Create A Loving Family
Another healthy reason for seeking to get involved in a romantic relationship is the desire to have children and create a family of your own one day.
If having children one day is important to you, then the first step towards that goal is to find a person with whom you want to build a family.
And that doesn’t mean any person. You need to find a partner with whom you can build a long lasting loving & healthy relationship.
Otherwise, you might as well forget about your desire to have a joyful family, because no children can develop into psychologically healthy adults when the relationship between the parents is toxic and when they are together for the wrong reasons.
A healthy family system needs a strong basis to be built upon, and that basis is the romantic relationship you have with your partner and the strong bond that connects the two of you.
So, if you want to bring up children in this world and build yourself a caring & loving family, then go ahead, start with finding yourself a partner you are mentally, emotionally, & spiritually attracted to, and commit to building a loving relationship with that person.
If you work on yourself, become a person who loves being alone, spending time by yourself, taking yourself on dates & trips and enjoying time on your own,
If you put yourself on a life path that’s personally meaningful to you, work on your aspirations, dreams, and valued goals,
If you have some close friends you connect with, hang out with, and on whom you can rely,
If you do all of that, then one day, you will come to ask yourself:
“I am already happy and fulfilled on my own. So why would I want to have on top of all of that an intimate relationship?”
“What’s the point?”
This article was an attempt at answering this exact question.
“Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
Albert Camus
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