ME TIME amidst the WE TIME

Every relationship is a balancing act with personal space—between personalities, between wants and needs, and between spending time together and giving yourselves time apart. Once your relationship has gone through the initial phase, you’ll  just get to the point where your personal space has become a priority again

Spending time away from your partner doesn’t mean you are no longer in love or that you shouldn’t get married. Instead, it means you’re taking time to put yourself first and do things that are just for you—choices that will make you feel great about yourself, putting you in a better mindset to take care of your relationship.

You and your partner may be a match made in heaven, but you’re not the same person. You are individuals with your own interests, dreams, and goals, and allowing a little personal space into your relationship will allow you each to pursue those, even if they aren’t the same for both of you. Having your own lives outside of your relationship will ensure that you don’t lose sight of your individual identities. Defining and staying true to who you are, in your own terms instead of within the context of your relationship, is vital to your personal happiness, and the happier you are with yourself, the happier you’ll be with your partner.

Think about both of your emotional needs; to some, constant contact can feel smothering instead of affectionate, and you or your partner might need a little quiet time to avoid getting emotionally exhausted. Knowing what you need personally will help set your relationship up for continued strength and success. Giving yourselves some personal space can also give you a better perspective on your relationship. Whether you have a conflict to deal with or are planning for the future, having time to yourself will enable you to think more critically about whatever it is the two of you might be going through. You may find inspiration elsewhere that could be useful in your marriage or simply benefit from a little time spent thinking about or doing something else.

Personal space can be anything from a quiet bath after a long day to a weekend away with your friends, so don’t be afraid to ask for some “me” time if you need it—and remember to offer it to your partner as well.

Although there is a great need for honesty in an intimate relationship, there is also a corresponding need for privacy and personal space. Personal space is the emotional and physical room you need to be comfortable. You can feel it when you don’t have enough because you’ll feel crowded, pressured, and uncomfortable. Intimacy can be compared to food and shelter, because we need it as much, but just as with food and shelter, no one needs it all the time and some people need more than others. As human beings, we have both a need to belong and a need to be unique. We want to be accepted, to belong, and we also want to be special, and recognized as different. These needs often appear to conflict as we search for the balance point between them.

It is often surprising to realize that the intimacy that comes with a relationship can be a problem. You or your partner can easily feel stress or pressure about too much closeness and not enough separateness. But keeping your distance can hurt your partner’s feelings and create big problems in the relationship. For example, if you feel the need for space and pull away, get quiet or shut down without communicating your feelings to your partner; he or she may not understand it and feel pushed away. As a result he or she may insist on being reassured by demanding more closeness. This will make your need for space more acute, and you’ll pull away further, and your partner will become more demanding. This whole process can lead to struggling, hurt feelings, and anger—and you may not even understand what you’re fighting about.

If you were born in a family whose style was very formal, or who have a great deal of respect for each other’s space you’ll be horrified if your partner pries into your personal things, walks in on you in the bathroom, reads your mail, asks too many personal questions, or wants a lot of attention. If, instead, you grew up in a close, very informal family, who had a lot of group activities and interactions, you might be quite comfortable with your spouse being always nearby, asking lots of questions, and wanting to share everything with you. These differences are matters of style; not of right or wrong. Either style, carried to extremes, can become dysfunctional, as when warmth, closeness and interest become overbearing and smothering; or, on the other hand, when respect for privacy and emotional reticence become cold and stifling.

Privacy is the internal version of personal space. It’s your personal power to determine your own internal boundaries, and how much of yourself you will share with your partner. Your private thoughts, your feelings, your personal correspondence, your sexuality, even bathroom time and your clothing are all areas in which you may have different comfort levels than your partner.

Privacy needs arise from your personality coupled with your family background, and you and your partner may have differing needs for privacy because of past history. For example, if you grew up with many siblings or a close extended family, which valued sharing, your need for personal privacy is much less than someone who grew up as an only child or in an emotionally distant family. Knowing how to move between privacy, personal space and intimacy, and having a choice of when to use each one can make the difference between comfortable intimacy and couples who are in constant conflict. Conflict about personal space and intimacy can lead to secrecy and dishonesty, if partners try to create space in dishonest ways.

WHY DO RELATIONSHIPS NEED PERSONAL SPACE AND PRIVACY AMIDST THE TOGETHERNESS AND LOVE ?

There are many reasons why you need more of your own time while being with him/her. Here’s a few of them :

Individuality is important to happiness.

No matter how much you resemble your mother, father, identical cousin twice removed, or anyone else, you are an individual. Being an individual and being able to “do your own thing” means being a happier and more fully realized person in your own right.

Being together all the time can suffocate a relationship.

Everyone needs time to themselves, and to be themselves. We usually try harder to be something “more” than we are when our significant other/spouse is present. Keeping the spark going in your romance means not smothering it by spending too much time together.

Personal space is vital to being oneself.

Being able to engage in outside interests is a good way to develop a stronger sense of self, which leads to the discovery of one’s desires and dreams. This is important because it fosters trust and communication between partners.

Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

It’s not healthy to spend too much time together. If you’re constantly worrying about whether you (or your partner) is about to say or do something embarrassing with your friends or elsewhere, this is a sure sign that you’re spending too much time together. Another warning sign is feeling like you can’t trust your partner to fend for him or herself without you for an hour. This is a warning sign of a co-dependent relationship, and such relationships can turn toxic very quickly.

Separating yourself from your relationship is healthy.

You didn’t spring into being fully formed. You were a person before you met your significant other. No matter how much you love that person, you owe it to yourself to be an individual now that you’re with them as well. The worst mistake anyone can make in a relationship is to define oneself solely in terms of the relationship. Remember, your parents gave you a name, but you made yourself who and what you are to a large degree. Honour yourself by keeping your own sense of identity within your relationship

Being individuals will make you both a stronger couple.

Having outside interests and friends is an important part of strengthening your relationship. As long as you’re both coming home to be with each other, you should be free to cultivate your own life beyond the relationship as well as within it. This keeps communication open and builds a stronger, more loving and trusting relationship.

Remember that everyone is different.

You don’t automatically have to enjoy the same things your significant other does. In fact, trying to force yourself to do so is committing treason against your own person.

Some people get very bothered by anybody looking at their text messages, or when somebody, even their partner, reads over their shoulder. This doesn’t mean that your lover is hiding anything from you–it’s really just them showing you that they are an individual with thoughts, feelings, and along with that goes their right to personal privacy. Two things that often go hand in hand with privacy are trust and honesty. You and your significant other should be completely honest and trust each other completely, and with this comes the respect of personal privacy. When you trust your spouse, you give them a part of you. You let them know that you trust them completely to be honest with you and you agree to be honest and trust them in return. Being in a relationship means that you and somebody have fallen in love, and you have come to the realization that you want to spend the rest of your lives together.

Who you are is who your partner fell in love with, and to make sure that you don’t change into somebody who you are not, you need to utilize privacy in your relationship. Being in love with him is beautiful, but a bit of personal space is important so that you love yourself more and in turn love him and your relationship more because only a happy and satisfied soul can build a happy and satisfied home. So, let loose a bit and find yourself a bit more. Only then you find  him in a better manner. Love yourself and the relationship a little more with a little of your own space.

Here’s remembering that ‘ Privacy is the most desired form of intimacy’, wish you a Happy Relationshiphood folks!

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