You Don’t Have to Be Single to Do Whatever You Want

This is the 2nd article in my special Valentine’s Day series this week. Thanks for reading!

During my bachelor party, I met a woman who told me she wanted to stay single because she “wanted to do her own thing.” She had been in a few relationships before, but she told my groomsmen and me that they failed because they didn’t allow her to be herself. In her mind, being in a relationship meant being constrained.

This seems like a prevalent idea today. Many people believe that singleness means being able to do what you want.

Single people pass around the idea of not being able to do what you want in a marriage as a defense for not being in a relationship. They want to experience the world and not be tied down with the responsibility of caring for another. So they tell each other to fully experience life before they settle down in a committed relationship, as if doing so will defeat their chance at living how they want.

Meanwhile, married people pass around the idea of not being able to do what you want in marriage as a way to enforce selflessness in the relationship. They tell young couples, “you can’t do whatever you want,” which if I’m honest, I’m not so sure is true.

Being married for a few months now, I’ve found that this isn’t the case.

Truth is, you don’t have to be single to do whatever you want.

In my marriage, my wife allows me to do what I want. She lets me dream big, start new endeavors, and chase after possible fantasies with all my heart. She loves and respects my dreamer spirit. In fact, she has enhanced my dreaming, taking my aspirations to new levels of success.

She does this because of one catch: I’m not selfish when I do what I want. What I want is for our family to thrive and flourish. I want my kids to look up to their father and be inspired to live a passionate life—one where they pursue their dreams. I don’t want them being cynical and complacent in the world. I want to be the healthy example that inspires them to make a difference with their life. That is what I want.

Here’s what I’m getting at: you can do whatever you want in a relationship because of one crucial element—teamwork.

My wife and I are free to do whatever we want because we both want the same thing. This is the magic of teamwork: it binds people together under a shared interest.

The reason many marriages fail is because people pursue what they selfishly want before working to get on the same page with their partner. They deny the reality of teamwork in exchange for perceived autonomy.

So my advice to anyone getting married or in a relationship is to make sure you and your partner are a team.

There will be days when you don’t agree on everything, and that’s okay. But you must be aiming for the same thing. When you start your journey together, you can’t have one person aiming for something entirely different than the other person. That’s something that will either get hashed out in counseling, or end in divorce.

You can only do what you want when you build the relationship where you and your partner both want the same thing.

I love the synergy I feel when my wife and I dream together. It is with this similar binding that my wife and I are able to add more pages onto the story of our life. And it’s true that there are times when I pass decisions through her and we’re not on the same page. But when we are, that’s what makes it all worth it in the end.

Establish teamwork and you’ll be free to chase your most selfless dreams.

Photography by Mikaela Hamilton