The Truth Is I Don’t Want To Be His ‘Everything’

Some women want nothing more than to be someone’s happily ever after. To him, she will be the embodiment of happiness. He will place his entire world in the palm of her hands and consider her to be above all. He will love her unconditionally until their last dying breaths and life without one another would be meaningless. Without her, he would be lost. But to desire such a romance as this, one may find they are more fuelled by self-importance than by love at all.

I learned at an early age that I could never love a man that I did not respect and I could not respect a man I did not admire for some aspect of his character. I was enamored with the thinkers and the wonderers, the travelers and the adventurers, the ones who lived life on a bigger scale. And to those men, I could never be “everything,” nor would I want to be. After all, how small is the world of a man who believes that I am his “everything?” And more so, what use would I have for someone that places me before their passions and their convictions? I have never been able to stay in love with a man that loves me at the expense of himself. There is nothing romantic about incessant adoration; only those with fragile egos seek idolization and call it love.

There is only a counterfeit sense of fulfillment that is derived from being worshipped. I do not want to be endlessly doted on, I want to be challenged. I do not want to needed, I want to be chosen each day. I want to be a wondrous addition to an already blissfully happy human, not a pretty place for him to hide his insecurity and discontent from the world- and from himself. I want to learn, not constantly teach. And most importantly, I want to revel in the extraordinary world that he has created for himself, rather than being the world to him.

Loving another does not require us to love ourselves less. In truth, losing who we are by loving another is not love at all, but rather infatuation. We are not entitled to all of one’s time, energy, and essence- we must give them space to be who they are outside of the relationship. Our sole purpose in this one life is not to be another’s soulmate- we are so much more. How foolish we are to expect the entirety of one’s heart- to be their “everything” and leave nothing for themselves.