Is it necessary to have a partner?

Is it necessary to have a partner to be happy? Our culture has conditioned us to understand that personal fulfillment often involves creating an emotional bond with someone. Otherwise, if we remain single, it is common for our closest environment to encourage us to urgently find a partner because loneliness (they say) is bad and harmful.

It must be said that there is abundant scientific documentation that reminds us that this is not the case. What’s more, from the University of California in Santa Barbara, Dr. Bella dePaulo provides us with the data of a revealing study. Being single does not generate discomfort or unhappiness. Often, many people experience remarkable personal growth after ending a relationship. A new stage opens before them where they enjoy their social relationships, where this renewed well-being even influences their health.

Now, we do not mean by this that being single is more satisfying than life as a couple. When we talk about happiness there are no exact formulas, no rules or guidelines that work equally for everyone. Because Satisfaction is not necessarily found next to someone: it must always come from oneself.

What if someone does not have a partner or “decides” not to have a partner?

This is a very personal matter, since many people have other priorities in life than having a partner, which is very respectable. For these types of profiles, having a commitment can even clash with the lifestyle they want to live, which is why they decide not to have it.

Maintaining or not maintaining an emotional relationship is (often) a personal choice. Now, it is something that we must make very clear to those who, at any given moment, may be interested in us. Each one has complete freedom to establish what they want and what they do not want, as long as we do not harm anyone with our behaviors. Happiness at the end of the day is a blank canvas on which one chooses the colors in the story of his life.

On the other hand, in the aforementioned study by Dr. DePaulo something striking could be seen that will make us reflect. Average Single people establish more satisfying and meaningful friendships. They also enjoy their family and friends more. However, profiles that had a partner saw these dimensions limited in many cases.

Social relationships and friendship do offer happiness

It was in 2002, when two notable pioneers of Positive Psychology such as Ed Diener and Martin Seligman, conducted a study at the University of Illinois on this same topic. They discovered that Happiness and well-being are related above all to friendship. This is precisely that dimension that is enjoyed to a greater degree by people who do not have or choose not to have a partner.

Friendship is that support where we share problems, where positive emotions are constant and our brain finds calm and happiness. It is not necessary to have a partner to be happy, however we can say that friendship is essential to feel good.

Having a healthy and mature relationship does bring happiness

On many occasions we interact with people who, far from feeling gratification being with them, can fill us with bitterness and dissatisfaction. Really, The experience of living love in a relationship is a path of mutual maturation.

In it we learn many things about ourselves by exchanging tastes, passions and pleasures. Also difficulties, fears and shortcomings that correspond to our inner openness to the person with whom we have decided to unite emotionally. In that relationship we show the most intimate aspects that we do not usually bring out..

With a partner or without a partner, The most important thing is to love yourself above all, value yourself and respect yourself. In this way, whether we want to have a partner or not, we will be able to bond emotionally with others in a satisfactory way; These being the basic pillars to maintain a healthy relationship.

After all, The objective of maintaining emotional ties with other people is to feel good. However, it is essential to distinguish between the need to obtain that well-being through someone or to share it.

The healthy relationship implies acceptance, to share who we are with the other person in a common space, which also allows us the right to enjoy our own space.

Why do you have the idea that it is necessary to have a partner?

The most common in the society we live in is having a partner, or at least that’s what we’ve been led to believe. We see it through the media, literature and in our education.

Surely you will remember more than one family member asking you when you are going to have a boyfriend, right from your earliest childhood. Looking for a partner can be experienced as something obligatorymaking us feel bad about not having a partner.

This idea has also been introduced through movies and stories that give great importance to romantic love, to the princes and princesses, the existence of the better half and the significant fact that it is necessary to suffer for love. All of these are widespread myths that appear in our minds like: “You should have a partner to be happy.”

Marriages and couples have been consolidated in our culture as a fundamental nucleus in the organization of our communities. However, There are many people who decide not to have a partner, It can be for a certain time or it can be for the rest of their lives.

The most important issue is to know that having a partner is part of a choice, not of a necessity. The moment it emerges as a need, dependence, conformism and possession appear, in such a way that we build a relationship based on desperation.

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