Oskar Holzberg: You are someone’s world

Oskar Holzberg
You are the world to someone

In short: That sounds wonderful, and it is. But the world is bigger.

And now in more detail: “You have time for everything. For your stupid rowing club, your buddies, your brother who doesn’t care about anything, your job, for your ex-wife harem. You have time for everything, except for me. And now you want “Are you seriously taking over football training for the little one? Do you even think about us?” Martina is angry. And her husband Kasper is writhing on the couple’s couch. “Yes, of course, it’s all a lot. But you know that you are the most important thing to me. We don’t have to hold hands together on the sofa every evening.”

These two were once the world to each other. And if we can believe Kasper, then it’s still like that. But Martina no longer feels that she is important and significant for him. On the contrary: Everything seems to be the world for him except her. A painful fall from relationship heaven.

Because when we learn to love each other, we are fascinated by discovering our very own universe, the world that each of us is. Which is made up of everything we have heard, seen, felt and learned, our beliefs, our knowledge, our style, our habits and our way of thinking and loving. A world that seems so vast and unique that it contains everything we desire. And something more. Because we are suddenly the most important world for the most important world in our lives. An amazing kick that fulfills our deepest longing: to be lovable, simply because we are who we are.

We float away on self-esteem cloud nine. At the same time, they are delighted explorers of another and proud inviters into our world. As we shrink more and more into a tiny nothing in the interconnected global world with its millions of possibilities for comparison, we are suddenly all that matters to each other.

But the feeling of “You are everything to me!” is so true! is and remains, it is always only part of the truth. Our love turns out to be just a part of the world. We don’t live from her alone. This becomes apparent when we leave the intimate act of love to receive the pizza we ordered. One person can never be the whole world for us. No one person can meet our needs alone. We completely overwhelm our relationship if we expect everything from our partner.

It takes a whole city

We need more: important others with whom we can share what our significant others are not enthusiastic about, stimulation through encounters and times that we only have to ourselves. Just as it takes the proverbial village to raise a child well, it takes an entire city for a couple to live happily.

But the world that each and every one of us is is also constantly changing. And without times of full attention to each other, we lose ourselves. So there needs to be a good balance between togetherness and life in the world around us. Martina and Kaspar cannot ignore that either. We are not just each other’s world. We must continually become the most important part of the world for each other.

Bridget