Best Self Magazine

The New Relationship Blueprint: It’s About Finding Yourself

the New Relatiohsip Blueprint by Nancy Levin, couple holding hands photograph by Uros Jovicic
Photograph by Uros Jovicic

The new relationship blueprint isn’t about losing yourself, it’s about finding your best self!

“You complete me.”

Tom Cruise was on my TV screen saying that line to Renee Zellweger in the movie Jerry Maguire, causing women the world over to swoon.

But not me. “It’s more like you deplete me,” I mumbled to myself.

Given my marriage — and divorce — depleting would actually be a very generous way to describe it, so it’s no wonder I reacted this way to such romantic schmaltz on TV.

It took me years to stop thinking I needed a permission slip to be myself and do what I wanted.

Years to discover that my life is my own and that I don’t owe anything to anyone else. Years to get free from believing that the only way to get love is to buy it, by bending over backwards with people-pleasing. Years to live life from my own inspiration, motivation, and agency — rather than in response or reaction to anyone or anything else.

Is it any wonder, then, that I even found myself feeling nauseated sitting at a dear friend’s wedding? It was a wedding like at the end of every romantic movie, times about a

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Best Self Magazine

Best Self Magazine3 min readCrime & Violence
An Invitation to Peace
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes — We live in a world where war coverage is live, social media keyboard warriors are loud and fierce, and racism and “anti-thisism” and “anti-thatism” ring loudly in our ears. Every day, we are bombarded with negativ
Best Self Magazine8 min read
Rising From The Ashes: 10 Things I’ve Learned In My Journey To Sobriety
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes — Have you ever hit rock bottom and lost everything? Has the reality of what you have been choosing in your life and what it was destroying ever hit you right between the eyes? That’s a big yes for me, but let’s ba
Best Self Magazine3 min read
Rising from the Ashes Through A Course in Miracles
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes — I spent most of my teens and twenties desperately seeking love, acceptance, and approval from others while paying no mind to myself. The more I worried about what everyone else thought of me, the less I mattered t

Related Books & Audiobooks