Asklemmy

So again I'm basing this on myself. I think a healthy relationship doesn't necessarily require a lot of personal change. It requires healthy communication, it requires healthy compromise, but if you're compatible (and something of this comes with the maturity to understand who you are and what your needs are, versus your wants) then you can fit together well with the right person without needing to change who you are.

And I don't love the pairing of the concept of growing (as a person) to growing to be something, or someone, who fits someone else. When I grow as a person it's learning new skills or trying a new hobby, it's growing me. Not conforming myself to someone else.

Which is a very important distinction because I grew up with a narcissist for a mother and it made me very codependent, and I essentially lost my 20s to failed relationships spent learning that it isn't about making whoever I'm with happy, and it isn't about making myself better to them. It's about knowing who I am, and embracing that so I don't enter or stay in a relationship that isn't already a good fit.

I'm with someone now who had the same trauma. We've discussed these observations. We know who we both are, and we fit. And as we grow, individually, as we pursue knowledge and hobbies and help others, we communicate, we care for one another, and we continue to fit.

So again, I'm only pulling from my life experience, but I feel like anyone can settle down or find the right person. They just have to know who they are and what they want, and find someone else who knows who they are and what they want.