You Know The Phrase, "I'm Nothing Without You."...But I Am Something Without Him...

[jenna1012]

My close friends and I are all in relationships and my girlfriends will always tell their boyfriends, "I am absolutely nothing without you...I love you." and they always get on my case because I tell my boyfriend I love him, but I don't say things like, "I'm nothing without you, etc."

 

What exactly do you interpret that phrase as meaning? What does it mean to you?

 

I love my boyfriend SO MUCH, I would do absolutely anything for him and I am there for him no matter what. Thing is, if we broke up, yes, I'd be utterly devastated and in pain for quite some time, but I am something without my boyfriend. I have a life, a career, a family, friends. I am a very independent woman.

 

So I'm wondering like, is that wrong of me? To think that without my boyfriend I will survive?

[Aleadragonhawk]

Nope, not wrong at all. It's actually very healthy, and it doesn't mean that you don't love him or that your relationship isn't "real". It sounds like your friends are just immature.

[Alezia]

I wouldn't say something like that to my boyfriend either simply because I know it's not true! Sometimes when you're in love, people tend to say things they don't really mean... I wouldn't put too much stock in it unless you knew the person was seriously depressive/suicidal.

[Stu147]

My close friends and I are all in relationships and my girlfriends will always tell their boyfriends, "I am absolutely nothing without you...I love you." and they always get on my case because I tell my boyfriend I love him, but I don't say things like, "I'm nothing without you, etc."

 

What exactly do you interpret that phrase as meaning? What does it mean to you?

 

I love my boyfriend SO MUCH, I would do absolutely anything for him and I am there for him no matter what. Thing is, if we broke up, yes, I'd be utterly devastated and in pain for quite some time, but I am something without my boyfriend. I have a life, a career, a family, friends. I am a very independent woman.

 

So I'm wondering like, is that wrong of me? To think that without my boyfriend I will survive?

 

I think your attitude is spot on to be honest. Nobody is 'nothing' without someone else in their life. And yes, without a partner you can and will survive. And this in my opinion in a major strength should the worst ever happen and you find yourself going through a breakup. That knowledge that you will pull through and that you are not just a half of something provides resolve and rationalisation when most needed.

 

Of course, you may not be able to take people too literally when they make such grand statements as these. Often it is just an expression of the intensity of feeling. Few truly believe that the sum of their worth is their relationship.

[Hope75]

My close friends and I are all in relationships and my girlfriends will always tell their boyfriends, "I am absolutely nothing without you...I love you." and they always get on my case because I tell my boyfriend I love him, but I don't say things like, "I'm nothing without you, etc."

 

What exactly do you interpret that phrase as meaning? What does it mean to you?

 

I love my boyfriend SO MUCH, I would do absolutely anything for him and I am there for him no matter what. Thing is, if we broke up, yes, I'd be utterly devastated and in pain for quite some time, but I am something without my boyfriend. I have a life, a career, a family, friends. I am a very independent woman.

 

So I'm wondering like, is that wrong of me? To think that without my boyfriend I will survive?

 

This is how I feel as well, and is the right attitude to take if you ask me.

A partner should add to your life, not be your life.

[lady00]

A partner should add to your life, not be your life.

 

I couldn't agree more. I think your friends need to stop getting on your case over something like that, seeing as your attitude is very healthy.

[itsallgrand]

Some people find it very romantic - the idea of being so attached to someone that they honestly may feel, oh, I will be nothing without you.

I shall put a dagger to my heart, in the town court, and be buried next to you.

 

For the most part, I think it's mostly dramatics.

 

When someone actually believes it, that, I think is unhealthy.

 

You sound super healthy. It's good to know that you are indeed a person in your own right. Love isn't in short supply there: you love yourself and so can love others easily.

 

But, maybe they are just being dramatic. Drama isn't bad in itself, can be fun in the right doses and with the right state of mind. Younger people especially can be so dramatic, ever notice?

 

Next time maybe counter them with something way over the top; something silly and outrageous. Turn the dark romance into a comedy or something.

 

....Now I must retire to my ivory tower, fading away until the day my prince returns again...sigh...I am simply nothing without him.....

[tiredofvampires]

When someone actually believes it, that, I think is unhealthy.

 

 

I agree. It is unhealthy if they believe it when they are saying it, and it is unhealthy to believe it if someone else says it to you.

 

Or rather, if not unhealthy to believe it when someone says it, IT'S DANGEROUS.

 

Jenna, you are right on, girl. I feel exactly the same way as you when in a relationship. I never say things like that because that is not how I feel. I would hope NOT to ever feel that way. I have always been too independent to say this or feel this way, unlike you. So when my last bf came along, saying things of a strikingly similar nature, I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought, maybe I'm not romantic enough? Not swooning "properly"? Maybe I am not ATTACHED enough? Lord knows I wanted him so badly, I could hardly stand it....but I came up short with believing if he left, my world would implode, crumble, or feel it had ended.

 

We actually got into fights about this -- that I was not expressing it the same way, and finally, I just kind of tried to "go with the flow" of these expressions, and even started to find a taste for them.

 

He eventually dumped me, and took all those glittering lines back with him, in his emotional suitcase. They weren't mine to keep. Now, he is saying them to someone else, I know this for a fact.

 

So my feeling is that those who say such things are deeply out of touch of what a stable love is about. But I dunno -- I hear happily married lovebirds who have a whole long lifetime of love together saying "my other half", a phrase that smacks to me of not being a "whole" unto yourself.

 

So that confounds me.

 

It also confounds me that despite my feeling quite disturbed at my "lack of feeling my world would crumble" if my bf was to leave me, my world crumbled anyway. And he was the one that dusted off his pants and got back on the horse quite quickly.

 

So. Hmm. If that's not ironic, what is?

[Pocket Rocket]

Oh no you';re not wrong at all, actually that is a very healthy attitude. Placing your worth in another means you think are worth less (perhaps not completely worthless, but not whole either) in their absense. Whether another is absent or does not change your worth. A healthy loving relationship is about acknowledging how beautiful and loving (and worth loving) both of you are. Together you are whole, apart you are still whole, don't let anyone tell you any different

[Jess...]

Just to add my two cents....

 

I was one of those girls who would say stuff like that to my ex. He was my first real relationship, and so I was VERY naive. I don't think I ever actually said "I'm nothing without you" specifically, but very similar things, like "I would die without you" and things like that. My ex though, did say many times "I am nothing without you" and "You are everything to me".

 

It being my first experience with love, I guess you could say I believed him. I couldn't believe however, the fact that someone was saying this stuff to me, how could I be 'everything', in someone else's life? But, he was saying it, and I have to admit, it felt good to hear stuff like that, so I believed him...stupidly. (I also stupidly believed him when he said "we'll be together forever" blah blah blah).

 

He eventually dumped me, and took all those glittering lines back with him, in his emotional suitcase. They weren't mine to keep. Now, he is saying them to someone else, I know this for a fact.

 

And that's pretty much how my story went too. After all that time of saying "I'm nothing without you" and "I need you, I can't do this without you", it seemed he didn't need me after all, and was moving on at a flying pace without me - without his "everything".

 

I realised then, that I wasn't nothing without him. And obviously I didn't die when he left me (though when we were still together, there were times I really thought I would). I'm not so naive anymore, and in any future relationships, whether he says it or not, I will never say things like that again - because it's simply not true. I said them because at the time of saying them, I believed them to be true. (And I guess the ex did too) But even when I fall in love again, and have those feelings again, I will not "succumb" so to speak. I know that it's just not true that I'd die without him, and I know that I would make it. I've pulled through a breakup before, so I know I can do it again (if need be).

 

So anyway, what I'm trying to say is, I think that's the right attitude to have. It doesn't mean you love them any less, just because you wouldn't drop dead the minute they said goodbye.

[Natty7]

Thing is, if we broke up, yes, I'd be utterly devastated and in pain for quite some time, but I am something without my boyfriend. I have a life, a career, a family, friends. I am a very independent woman.

 

You're just realistic and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! You are definitely not alone in this, I'm with ya!!! Just because you have a separate life from your SO doesn't mean you love him any less... it just means that you have a very very healthy relationship and keep your hearts together but separate... does that make sense? Hmm... It's like a poem I once read:

 

Let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup, but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping,

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

 

Translated? You don't have to be up each other's arses... you can live on your own and love them just the same. So tell you friends that their hearts would still beat, their lungs would still breathe and their mind would still run if their boyfriends were not in their lives. (it's just immature to think like that)

[hear_her_roar]

That, my dear, is what I believe true love is all about.

 

Yes, a relationship where each person relies on the other to be something for them will technically work, but true love is a situation where both people are completely whole without one another; being with the other simply ADDS to it.

 

I don't believe that love is the act of needing someone; it says more when a person knows they will be fine without the other, yet wants to be with them anyway.

 

 

[Natty7]

Yes, a relationship where each person relies on the other to be something for them will technically work, but true love is a situation where both people are completely whole without one another; being with the other simply ADDS to it.

 

Right on... one plus one needs to and should equal TWO!

[Positivity19]

I believe it is often misinterpreted. Personally, if I say something like that, it means that I don't want to be without that person. That if I weren't with her everything would seem bleached, pointless. Food would lose its taste, life would lose its colors. Everything would seem gray and I would feel destroyed in a thousand pieces. Sure, I would still be a human being and I would still survive. But that's the whole point. At least for a period, I'd be surviving, not living, because without her (again, at least for a period), I would not enjoy life and truly living it. Hence the term "I'd be nothing without you".

[katrina1980]

I agree. It is unhealthy if they believe it when they are saying it, and it is unhealthy to believe it if someone else says it to you.

 

Or rather, if not unhealthy to believe it when someone says it, IT'S DANGEROUS.

 

Jenna, you are right on, girl. I feel exactly the same way as you when in a relationship. I never say things like that because that is not how I feel. I would hope NOT to ever feel that way. I have always been too independent to say this or feel this way, unlike you. So when my last bf came along, saying things of a strikingly similar nature, I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought, maybe I'm not romantic enough? Not swooning "properly"? Maybe I am not ATTACHED enough? Lord knows I wanted him so badly, I could hardly stand it....but I came up short with believing if he left, my world would implode, crumble, or feel it had ended.

 

We actually got into fights about this -- that I was not expressing it the same way, and finally, I just kind of tried to "go with the flow" of these expressions, and even started to find a taste for them.

 

He eventually dumped me, and took all those glittering lines back with him, in his emotional suitcase. They weren't mine to keep. Now, he is saying them to someone else, I know this for a fact.

 

So my feeling is that those who say such things are deeply out of touch of what a stable love is about. But I dunno -- I hear happily married lovebirds who have a whole long lifetime of love together saying "my other half", a phrase that smacks to me of not being a "whole" unto yourself.

 

So that confounds me.

 

It also confounds me that despite my feeling quite disturbed at my "lack of feeling my world would crumble" if my bf was to leave me, my world crumbled anyway. And he was the one that dusted off his pants and got back on the horse quite quickly.

 

So. Hmm. If that's not ironic, what is?

 

LOL @ "not swooning properly," loved the way you worded that tov. I really liked your whole post actually.

 

You and I are very much alike, except if my *boyfriend* (when I have one) ever started emoting in this way, I would find it a complete turn off.

 

I don't want any man to be so emotionally dependent on me that he would be "nothing" without me, and wouldn't want to be so emotionally dependent on him either.

 

I can be very idealistic and romantic but I'm also realistic in many ways too; that statement and others like it are just way too over the top for my taste, notwithstanding what is said during sex, which is a whole different thing.

[katrina1980]

OMG I just realized this thread is ten years old! lol

 

Positivity19, how did you find it?