Here's a quote that feels so profound to me, I had to share it:
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Our choice of partners are not random. They are, in this sense, two people's unfinished selves seeking completion, but the completion they seek is in reality an attempt to see the self more fully. They are not two halves making a whole but two selves in progress toward each becoming whole so that they can, as Rainer Maria Rilke puts it, become "guardians of each other's solitudes...," partners in their mutual soulmaking.

from "Heartwounds: The Impact of Unresolved Trauma and Grief on Relationships" by Tian Dayton, Ph.D.

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You know how when you keep getting the same message over and over from various sources, after a while it seems that it is a message you might ought to pay attention to? Besides this book, T has been telling me that there is a reason why couples match up and why they stay together. Peter D. Kramer made that point too in "Should You Leave?" (another really good book that is about a lot more than just whether you should stay in a relationship or not). Kramer noted that there is a reason why couples get together, even when it seems like an unequal match. Maybe one seems very accomplished and the other doesn't seem to compare, or maybe one is good-looking and seems to have it all together, and the other is socially clueless. But they are invariably a closer match than it seems, because the one who seems to have all the strengths also has weaknesses, and the one who seems to be the lesser partner has hidden strengths. The two complete each other in ways not aparent to the casual observer. (Kramer excluded cases of obvious abuse, etc. from his discussion for various reasons).

The quote from Tian Dayton reminded me of this idea about couples completing each other, but with a new twist. The object isn't to make one whole out of two halves, but to make two whole people, building on each other's strengths and helping each other to find what they need to fill in the gaps.

What do you think?

Rap