We all know that you should heal before getting into romantic relationships, but you must be careful not to fall into the trap of perfection. If you have to wait until you're totally healed you'll be waiting until you die. So where is the balance?

The point of healing ahead of dating is so that you don't fall into the pits of codependency and transferring your wounds onto your choice of partner. Generally, if you choose when you're bleeding your pain will stain your choices. If you have deep self doubt because of growing up under a parent who only gave you conditional affection as a means of controlling you, for example, you're likely to marry someone exactly like that.

So what amount of healing must you work on until you're ready to take someone in, and how can you assess yourself? The key is in two things: prpgressive self awareness and meaningful friendships.

If you're reflective and curious, you'll quickly identify if your parents raised you well or poorly, for instance. This can be either from your readings or from conversation with other readers. If your parents were unpredictable and delicate, for example, you learnt excessive empathy as a survival tactic. You're naturally attuned to the troubled person in the room because you had a troubled parent to manage for the sake of your own survival.

Knowing this makes you unlearn the codependency and become conscious in your relationships. Your friends serve as a mirror to tell you how you're coming off to the outside world.

As a result, you can work on all glaring weaknesses before you can get into romantic relationships. After you get the right partner, you help each other in growing to the highest veraions of yourselves. This involves unlearning self inhibiting beliefs that sat undetected and which only an intimate relationship could reveal, and adopting higher habits that make you a better person.