Living as an Individual in a Partnership

Relationships can be very difficult in many ways. I think one of the hardest things to sustain is your individuality in the midst of being married or in a serious relationship. Mature love requires a lot of awareness of who you are as a person. Respecting your partner’s right to be who they are and having them do the same for you can be very challenging. If one person dominates the other in a relationship, it becomes very difficult to sustain lasting love and respect. Giving and receiving love in a mature way really is about just giving with no strings attached. If you give love and expect something back, you will always end up empty handed because you have not given for the right reasons. Who wants to be loved because they gave love? Most people want to be loved for who they are and if you are a mature, loving person, you will have plenty of love coming back your way.

If your relationship requires you to lose your own individual identity, it is about you and not the other person. Blaming them for giving up a significant part of yourself is not mature. You chose to do that. If you say that you “had” to do that to keep the other happy or to maintain peace, you are fooling yourself and excusing your own manipulative behavior. In reality, you did it so YOU could be comfortable and not have to deal with conflict or discomfort from the partner. Living this way over time causes resentments to build and loss of your own identity.

Idolizing and sacrificing self are not noble ways of living. They are actually done from fear and out of childish thinking. Adults know they can stand up for themselves in a healthy way through the use of boundaries. Telling another what you need and want and asking if they are willing to cooperate with you is noble. It is even more dignified to be able to express your needs and have another reject them and be able to find a healthy way to meet them in some other way.

Being in a loving relationship does not mean that your own personal growth stops or that you wait for the other person to be at the same place you are at any given time. It actually means that you get to grow inside and outside the relationship at your own rate. People need to be fulfilled inside a relationship and in other ways outside it as well in order to operate in their own purpose and development. This will lead to being fulfilled within yourself and will actually contribute to a more loving bond.

Loving yourself well enough to stay individual and keep those things that define you will keep things strong between you and your partner. It will allow for flexibility and compromise because you feel free and mature to express yourself. Trying to be what the other person wants or needs is codependent and will lead to emotional dishonesty. It will also breed unhealthy communication styles and produce blaming and defensive postures.

An example of this would be, “Look at all I do for you and look at how ungrateful you are to me. I give up and sacrifice for you all the time and you never even appreciate it.” You can see the resentment in this kind of communication and the partner will want to defend against it and they will not get any understanding of each other. If you maintain your uniqueness while listening to your partner, you will find the balance that you both need to succeed in growing a healthy relationship and in growing and maturing yourself while joyfully loving your partner.

Blessings,
Susan