Is it Independent or I-dependent?

My thoughts on relationships & love.

The word, or more realistically, the concept of being independent is something I always grapple with in my head. I think it’s defined differently by everyone based on their needs, often formed from perhaps not the healthiest emotional places.

One source suggests the definition of being independent means “being able to take care of your own needs and to make and assume responsibility for your decisions while considering both the people around you and your environment.” See, I already have a problem with that.

If you’re truly independent, you don’t need to consider the people or environment around you. That’s their problem and their independence, right? Of course I don’t believe that, but I’m playing a little devils advocate here. The fact is, in my belief system, we do need other people and the environment around us to be complete. What’s so healthy about being completely independent anyway?

In this blog, I want to focus on this concept and how it plays out in long term relationships.

Psychologists and therapists are constantly spewing to people to be independent, self contained and self-reliant individuals. This is usually said to people that have made some not healthy choices for themselves with partners, jobs or other important life matters. However, on the other hand we have people constantly seeking out a partner that will fulfill them. Make them happy and feel complete and share their lives with. Uh oh…… did I say share? There goes my anti-independent thinking again.

The thing that supposedly makes us different creatures on this planet is our heart, soul and spirit, uniquely the emotion and feeling of love. If you are independent, then how exactly do you let any of that into your self contained, self reliant being, from another person, or for that matter give it to someone. We ALL desire it. If we don’t have it, we teach ourselves to be “independent” by living without a partner. We stay busy in our work, traveling, joining various groups (which by the way, again is sort of anti-independent).

People who have had bad relationships and have been hurt, either never go back to another, or if they do, they tell themselves they will be independent and fine even in this new relationship, “I won’t let myself get hurt again by needing someone else…..well….at least not too much.”

I call BS on this. Being in love does mean giving up some of yourself. You’re hopefully not selling your soul to the devil, but, it is that surrender that creates the sense of excitement about love. Love is vulnerable, it has the lowest IQ of all emotions. That’s what makes it special. In my opinion it also is the reason you can’t truly be in a relationship without giving up some of that independence.

Having been in one for nearly 40 years with my wife, there are good things and not so good things about that. Codependency is a dirty word to many. While in it, if the relationship is working, it’s a great thing. However when one person starts to drift, that heavy neediness of the other can set off an avalanche of negativity into the relationship. This is when things start to unravel and codependency becomes toxic.

True long lasting relationships go through several phases. The ones that ultimately survive do so, in most cases, because of the love that exists and because of the creation of something I call the third entity in a relationship. Each relationship starts with two individual people. Initially independent of each other. However, once you start to fall in love and share your heart with them, your level of independence shifts. The love and energy that both partners put toward each other, I believe, goes into a third partner. No, not a menage a trois!!! Get your mind out of the gutter people! OK, maybe that was my mind. Seriously though, I do believe that this new entity that is formed from the relationship now exists separate from either one of the two people who formed it.

Let’s say person A meets person B. They fall in love and get married. Over the course of time something called AB forms. AB, which I will refer to as relationship bubble, now has needs. In order to keep the relationship healthy it must be cared for as well. This is again why I don’t think it’s totally realistic for two people to be in an honest and deep binding relationship to be able to stay independent to themselves. I do believe it works for some people. I think it also takes time for that to happen.

However, I also believe that if you go into a relationship with your guard up about keeping your independence you will never truly feel the love the relationship may have had to offer. It’s not something that you can have at the same time. Could you have both, to a degree, over the course of a long relationship? I believe so. The hopeless romantic in me however believes that if at some point, at least for awhile, you don’t surrender some of yourself to the relationship and your partner, then you are not REALLY experiencing love.

This is all only my opinion and I’m sure some of you will differ. There is so much more to be discussed about this topic but just wanted to get the ball rolling.

As I embark on my new relationship I continue to learn things about myself. As a wise man once said, “an unexamined life is not worth living….” (Plato). I would love to hear your responses. Hopefully this will be a topic on one of our upcoming podcasts on “The Middle-Aged Warriors”.

Thanks for indulging me as I travel through life’s journey and continue to chase my own tail. If you’ve read this far, thanks so much.

Sunshine always!!!