The “Break-up” Pact
Why self-reliance is the gift you give to yourself and your partner
Suggestion: Develop enough self-reliance so that your partner can feel free to break up with you. This is a gift.
One of the greatest gifts that you can give your partner is the confidence that you would be alright if they broke up with you — that your self-reliance, resilience, and strength would keep you from hitting rock bottom, crumbling, or spiralling. With your self-reliance, your partner can rest assured that a breakup would not keep you from a happy life or even finding (more) fulfilling love.
How do we develop self-reliance of this type? This is an ambitious question that will not be explored here. The implication of the message here is: if you are in a relationship and you do not demonstrate to your partner that you are self-reliant or resilient, you know who you are and should consider prioritizing this in your self-development to deepen your relationship (a good starting point for me was Anthony de Mello’s Awareness).
This is a contract, of sorts, between you and your partner — and probably most relevant if you and your partner are not married but have been together for a reasonable amount of time. (It is not completely clear if dating apps and our current dating culture has left me with much of an “addressable market”, in business terms). I say this because, on one hand, this sort of “contract” should be preceded by enough time dedicated to building a deep, lasting love. On the other hand, marriage is another ball game, with another set of rules. Relationship experts advising on what makes marriage work advocate a “no-backdoor” policy, meaning that married partners must not enter marriage with a way out. All conflicts, problems, disasters, catastrophe’s must lead to a mutual dedication toward resolution, obviously within reason (read/watch/listen to John Gottman). If you find your relationship far beyond the honeymoon phase, yet short of an engagement, mutual respect of this contract will serve your partner and your self.
1. The Gift You Give to Yourself
The risk is clear: when you develop strong self-reliance, and show that to your partner, you give them one less reason to break up with you. You may even show them that you don’t need or rely on them. The first step to giving yourself this gift is to become aware that this is a defence. You know that when your partner develops deep love for you and your well-being, the prospect of your crumbling, breakdown, or despair can be so painful to your partner that it requires true strength (or malice) to see a breakup through.
You do not want a relationship fastened together by fear. You do not want a partner who pities you, believes you to be fragile, or feels imprisoned by your neediness. When you develop self-reliance, you give yourself a twofold gift: first, your fear of isolation, loneliness, and rejection declines— you are self-reliance, resilient, and you alone can be happy and free to pursue your dreams or truer love. Second, your feelings of insecurity and resentment recede — your partner is choosing you every day because they want to be with you; not because they fear your dramatic demise; not because you threaten them with terrible feelings of victimization.
Every day that your partner chooses you is sweeter when they choose you over the wide open door, the legitimate possibility to go and pursue their dreams. Every day that your partner chooses you over feelings of guilt, shame, and resentment is meaningless, and certainly not worth striving for.
2. The Gift You Give to Your Partner
When you develop self-reliance, you free your partner. Your partner may struggle with the legitimate possibility of ending the relationship, a painful prospect in itself. This is natural. You free your partner to visualize greener pastures, aim confidently at their dreams, and pursue their individual purpose without undue burden — the burden you place on someone loving and not quite willing to destroy you. This is a great gift.
As noted earlier, it is with great risk that you give your partner the assurance that you will be alright in the event of a breakup — despite the sure period of grief, loneliness, and even devastation if the relationship is particularly deep. It gives your partner a truer sense of the possibility of a breakup and naturally explores the prospect. It invites the possibility that your partner may discover their life’s purpose, like dropping everything to teach scuba diving in Thailand, which most likely does not include you.
As partners, we retain the right to be individuals. As individuals, we retain the right point at what we want out of life, and pursue it.
As a result of your self-reliance, you allow the one you love to retain their power to be an individual, to pursue their path in life, and to choose you if you are invited on it. While your partner may experience distress in having so much freedom to dream and pursue their path, a freer choice leads to less distress than the alternative — that your partner choose you out of fear of hurting you.
Why a “Contract”?
A contract (like a lease, an international treaty, or an employment agreement) is almost always an instrument of mutual benefit , like a pact — you get something from them, they get something from you. Self-reliance is something you can develop yourself. It is a gift to your partner and also your self. While this is something you owe to your partner, your partner also owes it to you. Demonstrating to our partner that we will be broken if they chose to end the relationship is a common defence against insecurity and vulnerability. It takes courage on our part to choose to risk dropping those defences in search of a richer, more fulfilling commitment. We can reasonably ask the same in return from our partners, given the gift it would give to you and to them.
If a mutual agreement to develop self-reliance is respected, your partner is more likely to choose you because you play a starring role in their wildest dreams. Likewise, you will be set free from the impossible choice between pursuing your dream job abroad and watching someone who you care deeply for spiral to rock bottom. If a mutual agreement to develop self-reliance is respected, your partner will not resent you for pitying them and you will not grow to resent your partner for pitying you. Every day that you choose each other will be sweeter that every day that you choose fear.
Disclaimer: I am not a relationship expert. I speak from personal experience, a general interest in what makes relationships work best, and my own perspectives that I have developed through my relationship. I have been with my partner, whom I started dating in high school, for almost 10 years. We have weathered more storms than I could have anticipated and it has brought meaning, purpose, and deep satisfaction to my life.
