The fairy tales got it wrong. Two do not become one and live happily ever after. Two halves do not make a whole. Rather, two complete people come together and form a third entity, their coupledom. You, me and us. Not just us.

'Two becoming one' is co-dependence. Two becoming three - two self-reliant individuals and a strong bond as a couple - that's what gives security and freedom in life.

It's so important in life to know yourself, respect yourself and nurture yourself. I call this selfless selfishness - putting yourself first so that you can do your best for others. That applies to relationships as a whole, and also to the act of sex, where you need a ‘selfish’ approach to be real and connect from deep within, rather than from a head-orientated performance approach focused on whether you’re doing it well or not.

That requires self-reliance, the ability to self-validate, not requiring others to judge you from their own worldview and to decide if you’re right or wrong, good or bad. In intimate relationships in particular, people too often require the other person to make them feel good. They get into the relationship through their own sense of lack and needing the other to make them feel whole. But no other person can do that for you, it has to come from within. The expectation that your partner can ‘complete’ you can only lead to disappointment, with the relationship ultimately either continuing in a state of limited co-dependence or ending with bitterness and blame.

Coming together out of need produces a very different relationship to one coming out of want/desire/respect. Neediness based on fear or incompleteness, which is where so many of our needs come from, is not the basis for a good relationship, and therefore is a bad basis for a fulfilling on-going sex life.

So take some time to muse about your needs. Are they ones that once fulfilled will lead to you being a more complete and self-reliant individual? Or are they ones that will keep you in a state of lack, incompleteness and dependence? Hint, if they are around material concepts, they’ll be the latter; if they are based on societal or cultural expectations of needs, rather than what’s real for you, chances are they’ll be the latter too.

What the world needs is self-reliant people. People who are real, people who trust themselves, and who can join with others in relationship, in family, in community, in work, based on strength not on lack.