We not me...

There’s a school of thought that finding a partner or finding love is all about creating a union. This union is a fusion of two individuals combined to make one, the collective ‘we’ rather than the individual ‘I’. What once was two individual identities now becomes a shared identity, sharing interests, roles and vitues, some would go as far as to argue the individual ‘I’ no longer exists once the ‘we’ has been created.

Although, I would agree there will be shared values and some share interests in a relationship and even a shared personality or persona but the idea of ceasing to exist as an individual doesn’t really make sense. Whichever way we look at it there remains a tension between the ME as an INDIVIDUAL with my own identity and ME as part a COUPLE with a shared identity. Solomon claims this is the ‘Paradox of Love’ he says there is alwasy the tension between union and automony.

Freidman argues that as couples we remain individuals but have created a third entity, ‘a federation of selves’, where we can work together and collaborate across a range of things. This sounds like a workable solution, there is me and there is us, finding the right balance of me v we so I can be me and I can be we remains the challenge!