How To Not Lose Yourself In A Relationship: 8 Ways To Avoid Losing Yourself In A Relationship
Relationships are such beautiful experiences. Being in love is exciting, and letting the person you’re falling for entirely devour you is simple. For this reason, it’s crucial to understand how not to lose yourself in a relationship!
Why should you keep some of your freedom and avoid being too involved in a relationship? Losing oneself in a relationship is not good, especially if it will be a long-term (maybe even forever!) engagement.
You want to be true to yourself and maintain a healthy balance between your relationships and other aspects of your life. It’s never too late to reconnect with yourself, even if you already feel like losing yourself a little in your relationship.
This advice on how to avoid losing yourself in a relationship can help you maintain a happy, healthy relationship with your partner and yourself, whether you’re just starting a new and exciting relationship or you’ve been in a committed, long-term relationship for several years.
Contents
HOW TO NOT LOSE YOURSELF IN A RELATIONSHIP
Learning how not to lose yourself in a relationship ensures you can show up as your best self for your partner
1. DON’T FORGET ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS
It’s normal to want to spend all of our time with someone once we start falling in love, and it happens all too often that in the excitement of a new relationship, old friendships may not receive as much attention as they previously did.
Not only does this make us sorry for our dear friends, but will your pals still be there if you need them later on and can’t rely on your partner? Maybe not if you’ve disregarded these connections to give your romantic relationship everything you’ve got.
Friendships are just one type of interaction that people require in their lives. Just because you have a new romantic best friend doesn’t mean you can take them for granted!
2. KEEP UP WITH HOBBIES
Giving up hobbies and other interests that you don’t share with your spouse is one thing that might cause you to lose yourself in a relationship. While it may be a lot of fun to discover new hobbies and interests that you both love, it’s not healthy to discount personal interests just because they aren’t shared. In actuality, having your interests is beneficial!
Don’t be scared to keep seeking fulfillment in the hobbies and interests you don’t share since, interestingly enough, couples who support one other in pursuing their particular hobbies and interests are considered a significant green flag in a relationship.
3. ENGAGE IN SELF CARE
Self-care is crucial, especially if you don’t want to lose yourself in relationships. We are better equipped to be there for our partners when we look for ourselves.
Self-care in relationships means attending to your requirements for sleep, diet, time, etc. By taking care of yourself, you ensure you can be your best self for your spouse. We all want that, don’t we?
4. HAVE HEALTHY BOUNDARIES
Healthy boundaries have been the subject of much discussion in the relationship community over the past several years. This is good because couples with healthy boundaries meet each other as their most nutritious, strongest selves. A boundary is a guide to ensure your needs are satisfied in the relationship; it is not a wall.
A communication boundary in a relationship can, for instance, dictate how frequently your significant other can text you while you are at work. If your partner continues to text you while you are at work, you may become agitated and resentful, and trying to talk yourself out of your feelings will not help you or your partner stay healthy and strong. Therefore, you should be honest about how frequently you are comfortable receiving texts during working hours.
5. HAVE YOUR OWN GOALS
This one is crucial for preserving your individuality while in a relationship! Committed couples should and do have shared life objectives, but they shouldn’t sacrifice their aspirations. And guess what? Having personal objectives is beneficial!
Personal goals might include those related to your health, job, education, or artistic endeavors. Still, it’s beneficial for both you and your relationship to have objectives you’re striving toward. Everyone should strive to present their best selves to their spouse. A key element of this is setting and pursuing personal goals.
6. KNOW YOURSELF
This one can sound a little goofy at first, but keeping oneself from becoming entangled in relationships is essential! It’s possible that you no longer know who you are by yourself, particularly if you’re a serial monogamist (someone who enters into consecutive committed partnerships).
You don’t have to leave your relationship, but you need to work on the one that will last the longest in your life: the one with yourself. What values hold the highest esteem for you? What qualities do you admire about yourself? What areas of yourself do you wish to improve? You can be sure you are not pouring yourself into a mold someone else has created for you when you can see who you are.
7. KNOW YOUR PARTNER
In enticing romantic relationships, we tend to adore our partners and construct an incomplete dream of them and the connection. The most robust relationships are those in which both partners truly recognize one another as they truly are, sans illusions.
If you can accept your spouse as they are, warts and all, you’ll feel more at ease letting them see the true you rather than attempting to change who you are to meet their idealized version of you. Honest partnerships are healthy connections.
8. MAINTAIN FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE
This is crucial for everyone, but notably for heterosexual women who historically had less financial and personal economic freedom in committed partnerships. Giving up all of your autonomy is a prescription for catastrophe, even if your spouse promises to take care of you financially, physically, and emotionally, no matter what.
If your partner wants to foot the bill for date evenings, it’s lovely. A lover pressuring you to do something to make up for the date nights they paid for is not very romantic. It’s beautiful if your fiancé tells you that you can leave the job you despise because they can support the two of you. What’s not so lovely is if your fiance pushes you to leave a career you love so that you may stay at home.
These are potentially abusive financial practices, and they are difficult to understand. A dependable friend or a therapist might be able to clarify the differences for you if you’re unclear.
As you’ve probably observed by now, many of these strategies for avoiding losing yourself in a relationship are similar and overlap in some ways. Still, at the core of it all is maintaining your independence from your spouse and being loyal to who you are.
To guarantee that you don’t lose yourself in your relationship and come across as your strongest and healthiest self, maintain your independence, and keep working on yourself. We all want to give our spouses our best effort, right?
