You make it sound like, "if i know what I want, then I can get it ". ie: "it's all about ME, and knowing what *I* want".
I think just the opposite is more important: I think that if you want your spouse to "be everything to you", then you also should try to "be everything to your partner". That doesnt involve "getting yourself in order", and understanding yourself better: I'd say that involves understanding your spouse and their wants/needs better, and making THEIR needs come first. Not "instead of your own". Just, before your own.
I disagree with you to the extent that what I was trying to convey is that I believe most people have the same basic needs/wants in a relationship. For instance, if one were to consider the need for stability and the need for fun to be generally desirable but in opposition then I think a relationship would function better if both partners brought some fun and some stability (though perhaps in different "flavors") rather than trying to trade off one for the other. So REALLY what I was saying was that if I want a well-balanced, well-integrated, high-functioning relationship than I need to be a well-balanced, well-integrated, high-functioning person to begin with. Let's say I have a natural tendency towards being messy. If I am self-aware about this tendency and acknowledge that a desire for order is valid and understand that if I don't acknowledge this desire within myself and improve my own functioning to a reasonable extent then I will have great difficulties establishing a boundary around this issue in any relationship. I limit my choices to wallowing in filth with some other slob or waging war with somebody more anal retentive. I'd rather be in a relationship in which I do the dishes while he vacuums the floor and he pins me down after I give him head than one in which he vacuums the floor so that I will give him head or vice versa.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
