“We and “Us”
There can be times in a relationship when you start to feel like two peas in a pod, I becomes “we” and “us” and couples start to morph into male and female versions of each other which can soon lead to disconnection from our individual needs being met by our partners.
We were all born individuals, we’ve experienced life as that of an infant, then a child and finally an adult and at each given stage we’ve manifested individual hopes, dreams, preferences and dislikes which is what makes us all individuals, no two people can possibly be the same and why would they want to be, you get most out of life when you embrace and respect the individuality of others.
However there are occasions when individuals in a relationship find themselves disconnecting from their own individual needs and desires and start to form connections with the behaviours and preferences of their partner in order to manifest a perceived deeper connection, this may happen completely unconsciously and you or your partner may not even be aware that this is occurring or it may be an intentional action, either way it is something that those in an intense relationship need to be mindful of.
But where did that person go ? you know the one you were before you met your partner, where is he or she now ?
When first in a relationship its fun to share and comforting to know that you have mutual preferences, dislikes etc but its very easy to start to mould your beliefs, preferences and lifestyle choices in order to feel more connected to your partner, it human nature to want to find common ground especially in relationships.
For example if your partner doesn’t like monkfish but you like it it would be easier to put your liking for monkfish to one side and like a fish that your partner enjoyed as it would make life easier to not have to cook two separate fishes.
Without intention we can start to adapt to the belief systems and preferences of our partners to make life easier but if too many compromises are made by either partner over a period of time you can start to lose connection to your own individual set of beliefs or preferences and in this case it’s that of someone who loves monkfish yet no longer eats it to avoid a disconnection in preferences between themselves and their partner.
Over time the negative impact of denying your own individual desires and preferences is that you can start to resent all the things that you may have compromised to deepen the connection with your partner, this is when you start to feel like all you want to do is eat bloody monkfish or do whatever it was you liked doing before you met the person who didn’t like doing it…
Healthy connection doesn’t rely on either partner forgoing or burying their desire to do what it is that makes them feel contented and for filled under a pile of their partners wishes and demands.
Its a very common pattern that couples can be drawn to creating but it can lead to resentment further down the line and subsequent desire to disconnect from your partner in order to reconnect with their individualism.
So stay true to who you are and what you like, you can’t be wrong and besides how terribly dull would it be if we were all the same.
There are relationships which simply become disconnected because one partner makes an active decision to change their individual behavioural patterns and preferences, for example if going out for cocktails and extravagant dinners was a common interest of you and your partner when you met and then one of you decided to become incredibly fastidious about healthy eating and limiting their intake of alcohol then it would change the way you enjoy spending time together and it would be quite understandable that your partner may start to mourn the evenings that you no longer share together eating meals and enjoying a few cocktails.
If in this same relationship the partner decided on top of changing their eating and drinking habits to spend every Sunday morning exercising rather than cuddling up in bed with their partner as they may have done previously the sudden influx of change in their behaviour patterns could start to impact hugely on the other partners feelings of overall connection and even thought both partners may continue to feel the same love and desire towards each other the change in physical behaviour patterns could be perceived as a rejection of established patterns of connection once cherished by the couple.
Does this spell disaster ? not at all , again this is all a matter of communication - there are times in life when existing learn’t patterns don’t serve us as well as they once did and a change is behaviour is beneficial, you’ve probably heard the saying “those that play together stay together” and I think there’s a truth in that so instead of mourning behaviours that may have past their sell by date I think its worth spending some time creating new opportunities to connect with each other which will in turn will keep the relationship healthy and alive.
In any healthy relationship there are times where each individual just needs a bit of time to themselves to be themselves doing what makes them happy and inspired.
Whatever that it is , and you may have lost sight of that and may struggle to work out what that even is, you may feel that the pace of life and its responsibilities has taken over your life and in fact YOU…
So how you work that one out, how do you work out what it is that inspires you and makes you feel happy, it could be so long since you felt like this that you genuinely draw a bit of a blank, well for me its the thing that when I see it or experience it I feel like I’ve plugged myself back into my charger, I feel alive.
My personal defibrillator is when I return to London where I lived in my early twenties before marriage and children, the years of just having to think about myself and not be responsible for others is a wist full memory so when I see young free and singles going out for carefree fun nights out all dressed up and bursting with excitement and anticipation I really miss the fun and excitement of my youth when I spent my evenings doing the very same thing however that has absolutely nothing to do with my relationship status in life but everything to do with me .
So in processing these feelings to look for where I need to do some work on myself maybe I should spend some time reconnecting with this energy that I so dear miss being a part of my life , I don’t think for one minute its about wanting to relive my youth because I’m happy getting older and enjoy so many of the perks but maybe my soul is calling out for a bit more fun and excitement, after all I’m 45 not 93 ..
Getting dressed up and going out for a dance is perfectly within my capabilities but sometimes its easier to sit wistfully thinking about it and then not actually doing it, at these times I have disconnected myself from my own source of energy and I’m the only person that you can do anything about it. Memo to self, dust off those dancing shoes and get out there and party like its 1999- and there lies the question, why wasn’t I parting on the 31st of December 1999 aged 23 ? Because I was married and my ex husband wasn’t exactly a party animal , I had temporarily disconnected my self from my source then too..
Quite commonly its not the marriage that’s the problem but what both partners let go of to become part of it, in many relationships couples try very hard to create a new life together and in doing so they discard the independent lives they had created that drew them to each other in the first place.
For example if you were both very sociable before marriage and enjoyed going out and seeing friends and then in the early stages of your relationship started to spend far more time together and far less time being sociable, after a period of time you could possibly start to crave social interaction with others as you once actively did when single.
Thats no reflection on your partner but a reflection of the fact that you enjoy being sociable and interacting with others which is perfectly healthy and natural, the solution to this being able to find the right balance of time together and time apart so that both you and your partner get what it is you need to be happy both as an individual and as part of a relationship.
Getting a relationship to work is really like being on a seesaw together, sometimes ones up in the air and sometimes ones down on the floor and its about constantly readdressing the balance and making sure no-one gets either stuck up in the air or down on the floor, the fun of being on a seesaw is that you get to do both and that’s what a healthy relationship should be, FUN !!