If my healing is ultimately my responsibility, what is a relationship actually for?
One of the paradoxes of intimate relationships is that we need them far more than we sometimes admit. We do not become ourselves in isolation. We discover ourselves through participation.
Relationships reveal aspects of us that cannot emerge in solitude, while responsibility allows us to integrate what those relationships reveal. Through the presence, responsiveness and empathy of another person, parts of us that would otherwise remain hidden gradually become visible. In this sense, relationships do not simply accompany our development but make much of it possible.
At the same time, our partner cannot take responsibility for our growth. They cannot feel, understand or integrate our experience on our behalf. When we expect another person to make us happy, remove our pain, or complete what only we can live through, we unknowingly hand over responsibility for our own lives. This is a delicate distinction.
What we need from one another is not someone to carry our happiness, but someone who can remain present with our experience. Empathy does not replace the work of growth. It creates the conditions in which growth becomes possible. Feeling deeply understood does not remove our responsibility; it strengthens our capacity to meet it.
Paradoxically, the more responsibility we take for our own experience, the more fully we are able to receive what a relationship has to offer. We are no longer waiting for someone else to change before we can move forward. Instead, the relationship becomes a place where two people participate in one another’s unfolding, while each remains responsible for their own.
By Ariel Karmeli · June 2026
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