Rethinking Wholeness in Romantic and Spiritual Relationships.

In popular culture, the phrase “you complete me” has become an emblem of romantic relationships. Immortalised by movies and love songs, it draws out the idea that we are not whole until we find our special someone, who “fills in the gaps” and makes us complete.

In the teachings of the New Church, we find echoes of the idea that “marriage is the completion of a person, for by marriage a person becomes a complete person” (CL 156).   While this notion is attractive and emotionally stirring, is this the whole truth? Both modern psychology and a closer look at New Church theology challenge its deeper implications for human wholeness, growth, and the true purpose of partnership.

The Problem with “You Complete Me”

1. Suggests Personal Incompleteness

On the surface, the idea of someone “completing” us seems loving. But it carries a hidden message: that we are not enough on our own. Psychologically, this belief can foster unhealthy dependence within relationships, leaving individuals reliant on their partner for emotional stability, identity, or happiness. The same applies spiritually; we develop a mistaken idea that our spiritual growth is dependent on another. This does not align with the completeness of the teachings of the New Church doctrine. If wholeness only comes through another person, what does this mean for those who are single, widowed, or divorced? What if my spouse is not of the same faith? Are we condemned to incompleteness?

2. Creates Unrealistic Expectations

Expecting someone else to fulfil all our emotional, intellectual, and especially our spiritual needs places an impossible burden on a partner. This “fairy tale” expectation can breed disappointment and resentment, as no one, however devoted, can be everything for another.

3. Hinders Personal Growth

If we seek someone else to “complete” us, we set ourselves up to neglect the essential work of personal growth. True growth, whether emotional, mental, or spiritual, requires self-examination, self-acceptance, and a commitment to our self-compulsion and effort. Waiting for another to fix what feels missing puts us in a passive rather than active state, diverting us from this essential work.

4. Undermines Healthy Boundaries

Psychology warns against emotional fusion, where individuals in a relationship lose sight of their own identity and boundaries in the pursuit of unity. In such a state, communication and conflict resolution falter, and the relationship suffers from a lack of individuality and true mutuality. In heaven, we are told that as angels grow in their love for the Lord, they also experience life more and more as their own and distinctly separate from the Lord.

A more balanced perspective is: “I am growing towards wholeness, and I want to share my life with someone who is also growing towards wholeness. We support and grow together, rather than fix each other.”

Regeneration: Wholeness from the Lord

From the New Church perspective, true completeness does not come from another person, but from the Lord alone. The process by which we are made whole is called regeneration, a spiritual rebirth in which the Lord reforms our hearts and minds, gradually integrating goodness (love or will) and truth (wisdom or understanding) within us.

“In man there are two powers of life. The first is called the understanding and is the receptacle of truth, the second is called the will and is the receptacle of good. These two forms or powers of life make one when the understanding is rooted in the will, or what amounts to the same, when truth is grounded in good.” (Arcana Coelestia 3623)

This union, the spiritual marriage of goodness and truth within each person, is essential. Each individual is called to receive life from the Lord, thus becoming spiritually whole and capable of genuine, unselfish love for others. Unless people are formed by the Lord and, as it were, created anew or regenerated, they cannot be in the form of heaven, and thus cannot be in heaven. (Heaven and Hell 202)

The True Meaning of “Completion” in Marriage

The Writings describe marriage as a form of “completion,” but not in the sense of one person making up for what another lacks. Rather, the completeness comes through the conjunction of two whole individuals, mirroring, in the external world, the marriage of good and truth that should first occur within each person.

We read in the book Conjugial Love n.157

From these things it is clear that Woman was created from Man, and that both have both the inclination and the faculty of uniting themselves into one; that into One Man, is also clear from the Book of Creation, where both are called Man together; for we read, “In the day that God created Man, male and female created he them, and called their name Man”,  Genesis 5:1-2 

“But what is meant by the rib of man, which was built into a woman, what by the flesh which was enclosed in its place…are explained as to their spiritual sense…. that spiritual things are meant, which make one man from two, is evident from the fact that conjugial love conjoins them, and that love is spiritual.”

The idea expressed is that the two lives within us, our will and understanding, from creation, are designed to be joined, to work together to bring completeness to life.

The Spiritual Marriage Within

When we go back to the explanation of the story in Genesis, which we find in the book Arcana Coelestia or Secrets of Heaven, we find the following explanation of the two aspects of life within us,

As to external things, the most ancient church did no more with them than take them in with their eyes, but their thoughts involved what those things represented – so much so that external things meant nothing to them except insofar as they could reflect internal things in them. …For this reason they called the understanding in the spiritual man Male and the will Female, and when the two acted as one, they called it Marriage. AC n.54.

Because the most ancient people applied the term Marriage to understanding and will, or faith and love, when joined together, they gave the name Fruitfulness to any good resulting from that marriage, and Multiplication to any truth. AC n.55.

Notice that each person, regardless of gender or marital status, is designed to receive both good and truth, that each person is Male as to the understanding and is Female as to the will, and to be made whole through the union of these two within. It is also noted that the physical difference between the male and female forms in this world is an image, a representation of these two aspects within each. The example of the most ancient church is not to get caught up in the image or representation in the physical forms, but to focus on the two lives within oneself.

When we put our focus on the spiritual realities, those who are single, divorced, or widowed, those who may have a spouse who is not part of the church, are in no way incomplete or less whole. The deeper “completion” that marriage refers to is fundamentally spiritual and the goal of God’s creation within each person. A model and an outworking of this union must first take place within each of us as we are regenerated by the Lord.

Partnership as Complement, Not Completion

The healthiest relationships, and the truest marriages, are made not by two half-persons seeking their missing piece, but by two whole individuals, each infused with life, love, and integrity from the Lord. The joy of such a union is not rooted in desperate dependency, but in a mutual sharing of the abundance that arises from spiritual wholeness.

Swedenborg writes about these blessings of spiritual wholeness,

“Innocence, peace, tranquility, inmost friendship, full confidence, and a mutual desire of mind and heart to do each other every good; and from all these, blessedness, happiness, delight, and pleasure—such are the fruits of conjugial love.” (Conjugial Love 180)

When we are growing in our wholeness with the Lord, from the heavenly marriage of goodness and truth forming within us, flows all these blessings from Him as gifts to us and our relationships with others.

The idea that “you complete me” appeals to our longing for connection. Yet both psychology and the deepest New Church theology call us outward: to become whole from the Lord, through regeneration, so that we may enter into relationships not from a place of lack, but from a place of love, integrity, and spiritual freedom. In such a state, we complement one another, not as missing pieces, but as whole persons building something new, beautiful, and eternal together.