Your Best Self, My Best Self, Our Best Us

The best version of your relationship needs the best version of both of you.

Part 5 in The Tender Places Series

The Growth Trap

Here's a question that matters more than most people realize:

Are you becoming more yourself in this relationship, or less?

It's easy to lose yourself in partnership. To blur the edges of who you are until you're not sure where you end and they begin. To adapt so much to being "we" that you forget how to be "I."

And it's equally easy to use personal growth as an escape from connection. To be so focused on becoming your best self that you're not actually building anything with another person. To prioritize your individual journey at the expense of shared life.

The magic—the sustainable, transformative kind—lives in the tension between these two.

You have to be fully yourself AND fully committed to something together.

Not one or the other. Both. Always.

What I Told Them

At my son's wedding, I told the newlyweds something that might have sounded contradictory at first:

Make self-improvement a priority. Do it together.

Not because either of you needs fixing—you're pretty great as-is. But because the best version of your marriage needs the best version of both of you.

Read together. Learn together. Challenge each other to grow. Be each other's biggest cheerleader, even when you're also each other's biggest pain in the neck.

Here's why this matters: relationships don't stay static. You're either growing together or growing apart. And if one person is growing while the other is stagnant? That creates distance even when there's no conflict.

But here's the nuance that's often missed: growing together doesn't mean growing identically.

The Both/And of Growth

This is where we come back to the mountain metaphor from Part 2.

You're both climbing toward the same summit—the life you're building together, the shared purpose that makes partnership meaningful. But you're taking different paths up that mountain.

Your individual growth doesn't diminish the relationship. It strengthens it.

When you become more fully yourself—more confident, more skilled, more grounded in who you are—you bring a stronger version of yourself to the partnership. You have more to offer. More capacity. More wisdom. More resilience.

The relationship doesn't need you to shrink. It needs you to grow.

But—and this is crucial—your growth has to be in service of something larger than just yourself. Not in a self-sacrificing way. But in a way that recognizes you're building something together that's bigger than either of you alone.

What This Looks Like in Practice

So what does it actually mean to make self-improvement a priority while doing it together?

It means you each have your own interests, your own goals, your own areas of growth—and you celebrate those differences instead of resenting them.

Dave's career in the military was his path. My journey to building a business decades later was mine. We didn't need to be on identical trajectories. But we needed to support each other's growth while staying committed to the life we were building together.

It means you challenge each other. Not by criticizing or competing, but by believing in each other's potential even when they can't see it themselves.

When Dave encouraged me to pursue starting a business, coaching, or leading Heroic Tucson, or whatever, it wasn't because he wanted me to have a career. It was because he saw something in me that I was still afraid to claim. He challenged me to become more fully myself.

When I pushed him to think about identity beyond military service as retirement approached, it wasn't because his career didn't matter. It was because I knew there was more to him than the uniform, and he deserved to discover that too.

It means you read together, learn together, explore ideas together—not to think identically, but to have something to talk about besides logistics and whose turn it is to do the dishes.

Some of the best conversations Dave and I have had came from reading the same book and having completely different takeaways. We grew from the reading, yes. But we grew even more from wrestling with our different perspectives together.

It means you're each other's biggest cheerleader. You celebrate wins, small and large. You notice growth. You acknowledge effort even when results aren't visible yet.

And sometimes—often—you're also each other's biggest pain in the neck. Because real cheerleading isn't just unconditional praise. It's also "I know you can do better than this" and "I'm not letting you quit when it gets hard" and "You said this mattered to you, so I'm holding you accountable."

The Identity Question

This is where my work on portable identity intersects with partnership.

I spent years defining myself primarily as "wife" and "mom." Those identities were real and meaningful. But they weren't complete.

And here's what I learned: when your identity is entirely wrapped up in your relationship to other people, you become fragile. Because if those relationships change—kids grow up, careers end, life circumstances shift—you lose yourself.

Portable identity means having a core sense of who you are that exists independently of your circumstances. That travels with you through transitions. That remains stable even when everything external is changing.

In the context of partnership, this means: I am fully myself, with my own dreams and goals and growth trajectory. AND I'm fully committed to building something with you that neither of us could build alone.

Not "I'm his wife" as my primary identity. But "I'm Angela—a coach, a leader, a woman building a business and a life of purpose—who happens to be building that life with Dave."

The relationship doesn't define me. It's something I'm choosing to build while remaining fully myself.

When It Goes Wrong

I've seen both extremes, and both are damaging.

One extreme: people who lose themselves completely in partnership. Who stop pursuing their own interests, their own growth, their own dreams. Who become so focused on being "we" that there's no "I" left.

This looks like support. It looks like sacrifice. It looks like putting the relationship first.

But it's actually corrosive. Because eventually, resentment builds. Or you wake up one day and don't recognize yourself. Or your partner realizes they're not actually in a relationship with a full person—they're in a relationship with someone who's made them their entire world, which is suffocating.

The other extreme: people who use personal growth as an escape from intimacy. Who are so focused on their individual journey that they're not actually building anything with their partner. Who treat the relationship as peripheral to their real life rather than integrated into it.

This looks like independence. It looks like having healthy boundaries. It looks like not losing yourself.

But it's actually avoidance. Because you can't build something meaningful if you're keeping one foot out the door. You can't create that soul-level connection if you're protecting yourself from being truly invested.

The middle path—the both/and—is harder. But it's the only path that works.

What the Best Version Needs

The best version of your marriage needs the best version of both of you.

But what does "best version" actually mean?

Not perfect. Not flawless. Not someone who has it all figured out.

The best version of you is the most integrated version. The one who's growing and learning. The one who's honest about weaknesses while building on strengths. The one who brings their whole self—vulnerability and all—while also showing up with intention and responsibility.

It's the version of you that's continually becoming rather than stagnating. Not restlessly striving, but genuinely growing.

And here's what matters: that growth makes you a better partner. Not because you're more impressive or more accomplished, but because you have more capacity. More self-awareness. More emotional resources. More wisdom to bring to the hard moments.

When both people are committed to that kind of growth? When you're each becoming more fully yourselves while building something together? That's when partnership becomes transformative rather than limiting.

Living It Now

I'm living this tension right now in ways that feel both exciting and terrifying.

Dave's retiring from military service. For 30+ years, his identity was wrapped up in that career. Now he's figuring out who he is without the rank, without the mission, without the structure that defined him.

That's his growth work. His journey. His path up the mountain.

Meanwhile, I'm building Soul Force Strategies. Stepping into visibility in ways that used to terrify me. Claiming "business owner" and "coach" and "leader" as identities after decades of being "just a mom."

That's my growth work. My journey. My path up the mountain.

We're on different paths right now. Different challenges. Different areas of growth.

But we're climbing toward the same summit: a life lived with purpose and courage. A relationship that honors both of our individual growth while strengthening what we've built together. A next chapter that's chosen, not just accepted.

Neither of us is shrinking to make space for the other. Neither of us is growing at the expense of what we're building together.

We're both becoming more fully ourselves. And somehow, that's making our partnership stronger.

The Invitation to Growth

So here's what I want you to consider:

Are you becoming more yourself in your most important relationships, or less?

Are you challenging each other to grow, or settling into comfortable stagnation?

Are you celebrating each other's individual paths while staying committed to your shared summit?

Are you bringing your best self—not your perfect self, but your most integrated, honest, continually-growing self—to what you're building together?

Growth isn't selfish when it strengthens what you share. And partnership isn't limiting when it calls you to become more fully yourself.

The best version of any relationship—romantic partnership, friendship, coaching relationship, business collaboration—needs the best version of both people.

Not identical versions. Not perfectly aligned versions.

But full versions. Honest versions. Growing versions.

Your best self. Their best self. And the relationship that becomes possible when two people commit to both individual growth and shared purpose.

That's where the magic lives. Different paths. Same mountain. Both people becoming more of who they're meant to be.

Together.

Next in the series: Laughter as Oxygen—On joy, play, and not taking it all so seriously

How do you balance individual growth with partnership? Where have you seen yourself become more fully you within a relationship? I'd love to hear your thoughts.