Often times, vulnerability is used to describe a state of helplessness, a weak moment or being at the mercy of a person or situation. When it comes to finding love, I totally opine that vulnerability is one ingredient you don’t want to omit as you brew your love potent as herbs.
In this piece, I want to focus on how vulnerability is a necessity when it comes to building a lasting, and fulfilling relationship and ultimately marriage. To establish the connection between vulnerability and the quality of the relationship/marriage you hope for and deserve to have.
For one, it’s a busy world with a lot of distractions, everyone wears a mask and attempts to put their best foot forward most of the times, including you. Truth is I don’t expect that you should wear your inner feelings on your face and spill your contents to every Harry out there; you don’t really owe everyone the truth about how you are feeling all of the time. But wouldn’t it be a great thing to find just one person whom you can be yourself around, someone with whom you feel completely accepted considering you have grown mentally enough to be able to accept their reality, loving and supporting them anyway, and to see that the same person is your own better half.
When you find it easy to be vulnerable around a person, I would readily take that as a good sign, given that you as an individual have worked on yourself, so you can tell when you are genuinely free with a person as against when you are being manipulated to give you a false sense of safety. Vulnerability in this context is that you find that you are helpless in a good way, parts of your story that you made up your mind to not share, or walls that you built up to protect yourself from love and disappointments, suddenly tumbles down, it appears that whatever happens, you won’t be judged badly or at all with this one person. In other words, there’s no need to hide. It feels safe here.
Marry someone who makes you funny and free, rather than an idiot who compels you to be normal. I find that statement quite instructive to anyone hoping to live life purely and attach a value to the quality of life than its length. There’s no shame in being imperfect, and there are too many cases where what most people consider a blemish is the real attraction for the person who has a fond eye for you. Some people are just self-centred, they can’t help it, but the real reason most people pretend to be perfect is the judgemental world we live in. Good people make bad choices and that’s why there are second chances, nobody cares to hide or be perfect if they knew that someone cared to hear them out, and love them in spite of their shortcomings. The embrace of true love sets you free from all bounds.
The love that you want to experience cannot be it, if you have to retain your protective cloak just as you wear it about elsewhere, living up to the standards of every random person out there. When you are no longer afraid to be imperfect, when you are comfortable in your own skin despite your flaws and you don’t have to watch through the corner of your eye that you have been accepted wholly and their love feels like home, that’s when your love reaches deep and finds expression in the purest unrestrained form, helping you to give your best, to sacrifice more and lead a life of service to your partner and family. Love can find no optimum expression when you have to walk on egg shells and struggle to keep yourself under layers. The absence of vulnerability will ultimately lead to frustration, and I definitely think while many concepts of love are captured, vulnerability is often missed.
Wishing you joy on your journey to your vulnerable place…a beautiful, personal, God-ordained place.
With love, from Kaffy.