No one should accept the whole of us. We're appalling! :)

"You probably believe that when somebody tries to tell you something about yourself that is a little ticklish and a little uncomfortable, they are attacking you. They are not. They are trying to make you into a better person. And we don't tend to believe that this has a role in love.

We tend to believe that true love means accepting the whole of us. It doesn't. No one should accept the whole of us. We're appalling! You really want the whole of you accepted? No, that's not love. The full display of our characters, the full articulation of who we are, should not be something that we do in front of anyone we care about.

So what we need to do is to accept that the other person is going to want to educate us. And that it isn't a criticism. Criticism is merely the wrong word we apply to a much nobler idea, which is to try and make us into better versions of ourselves. But we tend to reject this idea very strongly."

Minute 11, 'Mating Minds — Alain de Botton on Attachment Styles and the Art of Compromise'

Duration: 15.58 mins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLNaKCk_Pjo 

Mutual Education

 "And for the ancient Greeks, the whole notion of love is that love should be a process of mutual education. In which two people, under the auspices of love, undertake to educate one another to become better versions of themselves. And they do this not to be cruel, not as a way of bringing each other down, but because they have the sincerest best interests of the other at their heart. And therefore love is a process whereby a teacher and a pupil are constantly rotating roles. Everyone is the teacher and everyone is the pupil at certain points and has lots of things to take on board.

This is not a sign that love has been abandoned. It is the proof that love is in action."

Minute 34.39, Alain de Botton, 'On Love' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-iUHlVazKk)