It depends what you mean by ‘true love’. I too think ‘true love’ is allowing someone the freedom to be themselves in a relationship. There is a lot of hype around ‘true love’ in the world today. A lot of people confuse ‘true love’ with co-dependency. For me, I believe you have to learn to love yourself before you can love another. After the break-up of my last relationship I was forced to reassess my beliefs about relationships and what ‘love’ really means. I realised that I was co-dependent. This idea that we can’t live without someone else just isn’t true. I have had those feelings but it was not healthy for me as it caused me suffering. (The Buddhists word for it is ‘attachment’).

I was forced to find another way and realised I had to learn to love myself which may sound trite but it is so true. When you love yourself it really is the best feeling in the world; so much better than looking to another to make you happy.It’s a wonderful feeling – as the song says ‘the greatest love of all is happening to me’. I never understood what those words meant. Finally I realised that it is nothing to do with ego but about valuing yourself. Louise Hay says that relationship problems always come back to someone not loving themselves enough. (Her book explains this very well.)

We are all brainwashed into believing that we must be with another person in order to be happy – not so. Yes, it is lonely at times but I would rather be on my own than with the wrong person. Ironically, after I had done work on myself I met my current partner completely out of the blue and I am much happier than I was in my last relationship!!