Whenever we talk about two becoming one, we run the risk of being confused to say that one disappears into the other for the two to become one, or that one dominates the other or even that one completes the other.

In fact, so often people get into relationships and marriage thinking that they will be completed in those relationships. So, they put a lot of pressure on their partner to complete them.

But that is not the whole essence of two becoming one. The requirement for oneness is “Two complete people,” says Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend in their book Boundaries in Marriage.

They go ahead to say that marriage is not meant to be the place where one gets completed as a person. In short, we need to be complete, before getting into marriage. We need to come to that place of being aware of who we are, what we want and bring into the marriage or relationship.

Dr Cloud and Dr Townsend emphasise that for anyone in a relationship or seeking to enter one, the crucial element of two becoming one is that the two must be complete in and of themselves – they must be adults – before they marry.

We couldn’t agree more with this statement. If we are to be honest with ourselves, so often what marriage or a serious relationship reveals is that we are childish. Most fights we have in marriage are because we are demanding the other person to complete us.

We, like our ancestor Adam (who blamed the woman that God had given him) blame our partners for our lack of happiness and for those things that are supposed to be our responsibility. Instead of looking to others to complete us, we are to complement each other by bringing different perspectives, talents, abilities, experiences and giftings to the relationship. We form a solid partnership and work together as a team in a symbiotic relationship not a parasitic one.

For us to do that, we must become a complete individual on our own in order to have true oneness with our spouse. That’s how the two become one!