You’ve found the love of your life. You are madly in love, and you know you are living with The One. When you are together, everything is perfect, and when you’re not in the same room, you keep on smiling because you know you are loved.
After dating for a while and moving in together, the next thing you want is to get married. You know you want to grow old with this person. You want to buy a house or maybe an RV, you want to take care of a dog or a cat together with your future spouse, and maybe have a child or two. You want to shout out your love from the top of the mountain, or at least from the top of the stage on your wedding day.
And there you are, in front of the marriage officiant, next to your soon-to-be spouse, with friends and family watching your back. Right there, in that fairytale moment, the officiant asks you to vow that you will love, honor, and keep your partner in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better or worse while you both shall live. That moment is filled with emotions; your voice is trembling, your hands are shaking, your mother barely keeps her tears.
Some people are lucky to live their lives with the first chosen one. Others find their second or third “The One” because they also become the second or the third best version of themselves, and that’s fine, too. Each time one repeats the same vows or variations on the same idea, that person is emotional and feels that next to their new spouse is the beginning of a great life, full of happiness and laughter.
Now, have you ever wondered how come we swear eternal love, protection, and appreciation to our spouses, but we never did that for ourselves? When we get married, we proudly express our feelings for our partners in front of everyone, and we promise to keep them forever, but we never do that for ourselves, for our hearts or bodies.
Our spouses can come and go, unfortunately. Yes, we tie the knot; we promise it’s forever, but no one has ever measured “forever,” and for some of us, this might be five years; meanwhile, for others, this may mean eternity. If we think about it, even the relationship with our parents ends at some point, when they finish their journey on Earth. Not to mention that we can have multiple best friends during our lives and even they can become strangers at some point.
For as long as we live, we have only one person that will always be there for us and that person is our own self. Our inner voice always guides us in life. Our mind is the one that keeps us up at night. Our own heart is the one that stops when our time on this life has come to an end.
Knowing all this, do you think you treat yourself right when you don’t promise your own person the same love and protection you promise someone else? And how do you work on this longest relationship you’ll ever have if you keep telling yourself how worthless you are?
Please, let’s have a walk down memory lane and be honest with yourself. Do you remember at least one time when you said to someone: “Oh, stop it! You’re not worthless. You are awesome and you’ll achieve this or that!” I bet you said it at least once to your friend, your mother, your child, spouse, or even to a work colleague.
With the same honesty, how many times did you say that to yourself? If you don’t like the answer to this question, you’re halfway there to change something fundamental in your life.
All our relationships need education and you can start now to educate the relationship with this amazing person in your life, with yourself.
I don’t even understand how come this vow of loving and protecting ourselves isn’t mandatory worldwide. But the good part is that it’s never too late to start building this meaningful relationship, and it’s never too late to shout out loud self-love and self-appreciation.
Instead of a closing line, I leave here a simple question for you: How do you think your life would look like if you’d be in a happy relationship with yourself?