Loss of a relationship is painful, but if you lose yourself in a relationship, when it ends, it's devastating, because you are lost.
One particularly harmful idea carried by our cultural narrative is that you need to find someone who will love you. Imagine if we believed this about any other basic need: food, water, oxygen. If you needed another person to provide you with those, you’d be considered dependent—if not disabled. Yet we so willingly put ourselves in this state with love.
