"You complete me"
Pop Psychology
Popularized by *Jerry Maguire*. The idea that a partner makes you whole.
**Reality: Romanticized codependency.** Popularized by *Jerry Maguire*. The idea that a partner makes you whole. Entering a relationship needing someone to complete you places an impossible burden on them and creates an unhealthy dependency. Healthy partnerships are two whole people choosing each other. Schnarch and Tatkin are particularly direct about this.
Evidence
Pop Psychology
The romantic ideal that the right partner completes you earns Pop Psychology. Relationship research points the other way: healthier relationships involve two reasonably whole, self-defined people who grow through the partnership rather than one person filling a hole in the other. The self-expansion research describes partners expanding each other's sense of self, which is growth, not completion, and the differentiation literature finds that keeping a clear sense of self inside a close bond predicts better functioning. Looking to a partner to complete you tracks more with dependence than with the healthy interdependence the evidence favors.