Emotional Oneness: Finding Significance in Your Significant Other

Creating strong, lasting, and romantic relationships is becoming increasingly difficult as concepts such as “Netflix and chill,” “swiping left,” “bae,” and “Facebook official” become increasingly popular. While the experience of meeting someone new should be enjoyable and exciting, the over-sexualized stance society has taken is preventing genuine connections from being formed. Pornography, one-night stands and an overwhelming sense of “everyone else is doing it” are providing an atmosphere that rises up a generation of relationships built to break down. We’ve created a situation where appearance and an individual’s ability to provide sexual gratification take dominion over the beautiful substance that makes up a very personal human soul.

Further complicating the problem is the uncertainty of distinguishing between the stages of friendship, “talking” and commitment. Making the decision to remain loyal in a relationship means leaving behind the intention of actively searching for someone else. The idea of moving on to newer and better things often leads to the irrational belief that people can just as easily be replaced, which only damages the other person’s ability to trust in the future. True emotional connection, love and commitment are being replaced by individual selfishness, immediate gratification, and impulsiveness. The things that should lead to a strong, stable relationship are being replaced by the inability to feel the dreams, aspirations, and emotions of another person as strongly as your own.

At this point, I would like to clarify that my previous mention of the term “bae” was not intended to be a personal vendetta against that singular pet name, but rather a statement against what out culture has made it mean. It can no longer be seen simply as a sign of endearment for one person you love but a status to hold for yourself. It all revolves around the perception that happiness will suddenly be obtained through forming a relationship rather than achieving happiness together within the relationship. The problem is that it has become more important to have someone (bae) than it is to actually build a relationship. Something that should remain intimate and personal has transformed into a social obligation to show your own worth.

Taking the step to know someone physically is far too often taken before emotional knowledge has been gained. Personally, I believe that marriage is a necessity before that step is ever taken because it gives you time. It gives you time to know how their face radiates joy straight to your heart when they laugh. It gives you time to sit under the stars and express dreams, hopes, passions, ideas and love with one another. It gives you the time to understand each other’s fears, quirks and vulnerabilities, which presents the opportunity to bring courage, understanding and healing into the relationship in order to grow together as one. All this allows you to understand them on a level that no one else ever will because you both have placed sole focus on building emotional knowledge, which increases strength, resilience, and perseverance.

Becoming one on an emotional level will be far more challenging than immediately going all the way, but it will produce so much more in terms of strengthening the relationship when deciding to become one physically.