Beyond Romance | Embracing Self Partnership as a Path to Personal Resilience

In her fantastic book Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy, Jessica Fern lays out a practical pathway for enjoying secure relationships with multiple people. While having multiple relationships might mean spending lots of time and energy on others, Fern’s system calls on its adherents to keep some of the love for themselves too.

In what she calls the HEARTS of being secure, each letter stands for a component of a healthy relationship:

H: Being ‘Here’
E: ‘Expressing delight’
A: ‘Attunement’
R: ‘Rituals and routines’
T: ‘Turning towards after conflict’, and… ‘
S: Self’

Fern argues that our self-relationship is the bedrock for our other connections. If we don’t maintain a healthy relationship with ourselves – creating self partnership – then our partners are left to pick up the pieces, and relationships can fall apart.

This is great advice, and for monogamous people too, but is there any juice here that we can apply outside of relationships?

In her 2019 interview with British Vogue Emma Watson caused quite a stir by describing herself as ‘self partnered’. Seemingly the people of the internet weren’t okay with the idea of a 30 year old woman being happy single. It was an off-the-cuff remark, but she has since gone on to explain that being “self partnered” isn’t “necessarily about me celebrating being single”. Rather she was realising: “‘Oh, maybe I’ve figured out some things about how to care for myself better – maybe quite well, actually.’ And taking pride in that”.

Exploring self partnership

So how do you take care of yourself outside of a relationship; how do we build self partnership? Jessica Fern advises us to apply each of the letters of the HEARTS system inwardly, setting aside solo quality time and prioritising it in the face of other demands, finding ways to be attuned to yourself (journaling, walks in nature and the like), taking time to appreciate your successes and good qualities, and ‘turning towards after conflict’ (i.e. forgiving yourself for mistakes).

In fact, this isn’t such a new idea. In Buddhism the practice of Mettā (loving kindness) typically starts with practitioners cultivating a sense of goodwill and kindness towards themselves, not only because they deserve it, but because that inner state of self-love is what ripples out into the world.

As the late, great Buddhist teacher Rob Burbea put it “In the process of engaging in Mettā practice, over time, the heart transforms […] – that’s at the centre of everything. It changes the way we see the world and the way we act and choose in the world. And then through that, of course, we are transforming the world.”

There are many guides and articles out there on how to cultivate more self-love, and even workshops and ‘self-love coaches’ from places like The Self Love Lab. These can form the foundation for a self-relationship which is healthier and more fulfilling, whether you choose to make this the primary (or only) romantic relationship in your life or not.

Nevertheless, as Emma Watson reminds us, there’s also “importance [in] building community, having community and investing, very intentionally, time and energy into that.”

Self partnership in relationships

The reality is that even those of us who are self-partnered (or ‘single’ for the old-fashioned among you) are still in loads of relationships. We have friends, co-workers, housemates, family members, climbing buddies, café staff who know our names and a whole smorgasbord of others.

Above all else, self-partnership is about building a life of emotional and social resilience rather than pinning all our hopes on a Mr/Mrs/Mx Right – that’s sound advice for anyone.