This is who I am.. take it or leave it!

Every ‘normal’ sentient being desires acceptance and love.. to truly feel those emotions during the course of their life.

No where is seeking love & acceptance more prevalent than in a relationship.

Often you will hear men and women talking about wanting their counterpart to accept them for who they are.. to value their ‘true self.’

Acceptance of someone for who they are is a loving notion and should overwhelming be pursued in a healthy relationship by all parties equally.

For instance if we consider a scenario of a couple, Jane & John Doe. Jane believes salt tastes sweet. This is Jane’s firm belief and deeply rooted in her identity. Perhaps she only ever tasted salt and developed a taste for it. John does not believe that salt is sweet and can’t agree with Jane. How can they both proceed with a life together? With great difficult it would be said..

The world we live in today facilitates one sided acceptance. This issue in relationships becomes more absurd when one partner wants the other to accept them exactly as they are, but asks the other to conform to their subjective standards or ‘truths.’

In my experience the majority of relationships that succeed, do so, due to a common frame of reference as it pertains to objective truths. This shared perspective is paramount to distinguishing between right and wrong, acceptable/unacceptable in a relationship.

Without this frame of reference, you face an uphill battle to try and be in a relationship where Jane insists that her truth that salt is sweet, is fact!

In a relationship, an objective truth would for example be that physical violence is unacceptable.. however, if one partner maintains their subjective truth that violence is just a form of expression, that is a disaster in the making.

A couple with a vastly different frame of reference on fundamental aspects such as communication styles or handling of conflict would have some issues to work through.

How can this be overcome you might say? It is quite simple (not saying easy), the partner who is maintaining a subjective view on objective truths has to change to be in alignment with reality.

As I said this is not easy… it is a challenging of a person’s identity, but if they are willing to improve and grow, it is not impossible.

If you love one another, you will be patient and supportive and you can hope for a favourable outcome.