When it comes to marriage and love we as a society have evolved in the way we view these two things together. Back in the 1800's marriage was once an institution that allowed women to be able to receive shelter, food and protection from her man and for the two to start a family. During that time it was made to believe that love was not necessary in order for a marriage to occur. It was about practicality and making sure that women were able to create offspring for their husbands. Moving towards the industrial era, the way women viewed marriage continued to change. As they began to be able to provide for themselves, women found that they no longer needed marriage in order to survive and fulfill their necessities. This has led them to a different purpose for marriage, which was to have a family. Then by the 1990's, women felt they no longer needed to be married in order to have children, as they could very much achieve this without necessarily being committed to a man. So then we reach the most recent belief of why we marry, and nowadays the common belief is to find someone who can make us feel complete.
Marriage is believed to be an institution to complete one another – to make each other happier than we were before.
There is something that can sound quite romantic about the idea that we are all incomplete beings until we find "the one" - our "soul mate". The belief that we can never truly be happy without our "other half" is what often drives all of us to find that special person to be with. But, what does it even mean to be incomplete in the first place? Can romantic relationships really succeed and be fulfilling when it is between two incomplete people? What we have found time and time again is that marriages between two complete individuals tend to have higher success rates than marriages where the couples are incredibly dependent on each other. The idea of that someone out there is supposed to 'complete us' may sound somewhat dreamy at first but in reality, this idea can be very damaging and creates a weak foundation for any relationship to stand on. It is the very thing that fosters desperation, disappointments and frustrations particularly because at the end of the day it takes two strong individual who are already happy with themselves to make a relationship work.
For any of us who want to have a long lasting and happy marriage it is vital that we invest in ourselves and in making sure that we feel complete even without our partners. To elaborate further on what it means to be complete in the first place, here are some pointers of what it is like to be complete in real life.
Photography: iStock Photos
We have your own world outside of the relationship
In other words, our world does not revolve around our partner. It does not mean that we don’t prioritize our man; it just means that he isn’t the only person or the only aspect we deem as important. When we are incomplete – we tend to make our man the only person that we consider to be important hence we end up not leaving much room for our family, friends and even ourselves to exist in our list of priorities. Having our own world means that we have interests, hobbies, passion, and a social life that exists outside of the relationship. It means that if ever the relationship goes down the drain our world will be just fine because we have grounded ourselves in other things aside from the relationship. There is a big sense of independence and yet with this comes the ability for us to give more to our partner, to share more things. When two people have their own little worlds they will be far more able to love one another in ways that two incomplete people simply would not be able to.
Photography: iStock Photos
Photography: iStock Photos
Photography: iStock Photos
Photography: iStock Photos
We do not need someone else to make our lives better or to make ourselves feel special or 'complete' – we can do that all by ourselves. The wonderful thing about marriage is the fact that though we may not technically need it, we can appreciate the special bond and life-long commitment that comes with promising to love each other in sickness and in health, until death do us part. Although it may no longer be deemed as a necessity, marriage still brings in that extra something extraordinary all of us deserve to experience.
