How To Be Happy By Maintaining Your Individuality In Your Relationship

Have you ever felt lost in your relationship? Like you don’t have control over your life? That you have always been in a giving mode prioritizing everyone else’s needs over yours. If you do, you aren’t alone. Many, including me, have experienced this at one time or the other. 

As a parent, you spend so much time taking care of the kids that thinking about your needs can take a back seat. The issues in your long-term relationship also take a backseat. 

We get used to doing things a certain way, and before we know it, we feel uneasiness and, depending on the level of our compromises, even resentment. This post explores how maintaining our individuality within a relationship can help us be happy in the long term. 

Waking Up From Established Patterns

In any long-term relationship, we can become set in doing things a certain way over time. You recognize each other’s strengths and delegate certain aspects of life to your partner. 

Are we comfortable with these roles we have given ourselves? We are continually growing as people. Our experiences and mistakes change us, making us wiser and stronger. What worked for you once may not work for you years later. This very thing happened to me. 

After spending time parenting, recovering from postpartum, and managing my career and social connections, I had no energy. So it was easy to delate finances to my partner. I never once questioned anything. 

He was managing my credit cards, bills, and everything else. Not because he wanted control but because I didn’t care much for it. When I got out of the survival stage of parenting and could breathe normally, I started questioning things. 

How can I be close to 40 and not manage my finances? Isn’t it necessary for basic survival? I was seeking independence within our relationship. 

This stage of waking up can affect many of us differently. You may realize, wait a minute, why am I not spending time with my friends as much? Why am I only tending to the needs of my partner and children? Is there ever room for me in this relationship? You may realize you have been bending or neglecting to the point of resentment. 

 It takes two people to create a pattern, but only one to change it.

Esther Perel

Balancing The Need For Connection And Freedom

Popular Psychotherapist Esther Perel says that relationships that work well balance two human needs: Our need for connection and freedom. According to Esther, we all want a base and to belong but also need space for becoming. We need room to express ourselves honestly and room for our growth.

She also talks about how in relationships, someone is always more afraid of losing the other while the other is more afraid of losing themselves. In my case, I fear the latter, and my choices reflect this feeling. 

When we raise a family together and belong to the same social circles, it’s easy to lose sight of ourselves. One may wonder, does seeking my individuality make me selfish? 

Seeking individuality is particularly harder for women who struggle to balance their needs and their children’s, all the while fighting generational beliefs of who they should be vs. who they want to be. 

Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness.

Esther Perel

Is it too late to change things if you are mostly happy? 

The bigger question is whether I have space to be who I want to be in my relationship. Do I have room to grow and evolve without judgment? 

It’s also a matter of practicality. While you each have your strengths, are there things in your life you don’t own because you fear them? If you were to end up alone, how far along would you be in learning that new skill, so you don’t feel helpless? 

We don’t need to wait our entire lifetime to make changes that make us happy. One woman I know was left with stock options after her spouse passed away. She was overwhelmed and had no idea how to deal with them. She wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible and did it without much thought. 

Being In Charge Of Our Own Lives

Being in charge of our lives and maintaining our individuality within a relationship is challenging, especially if this hasn’t been the pattern. 

When your soul is ready for it, you may begin to push back. You start questioning established patterns. Your partner may think you are changing and becoming more selfish. In reality, you are just trying to find yourself and become everything you are capable of in this life. 

To make changes, that make us truly happy, we need to know what we want. We need to know what kind of person we are trying to be and develop some self-awareness.

Steven Covey, the author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, discusses designing our lives with the end in mind. He suggests thinking about how we want to be known in each of the areas that matter to us: in relationships, in work, community, etc. 

Another simple tip I like is from the book The Artist’s way. Author Julia Cameron asks us to list 20 things we enjoy doing and the last time we did them. Doing activities from this list helps us unblock ourselves and get in touch with ourselves. 

In relationships, we can extend this further and list things we wish we knew how to do—especially the things we have always delegated to our partner out of fear.

Facing it All

Putting off our desires and personal growth because we are afraid of confrontation and changing old relationship habits leads to resentment. 

We can be fully ourselves and still be in a relationship at no one’s cost. So please begin to ask some of these questions about your own life. Ask questions to be happy and live up to your potential in life.