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“What makes for a healthy romantic relationship?” one would ask, and the instant response to that question would be simple; good communication, respect, quality time, affirmation, appreciation, great sex, and of course, understanding your partner’s love language and applying it to diligence and style.
Undoubtedly for any relationship to grow, glow and thrive, a lot of work goes into it continuously and yes spending time together with your partner is extremely important. However, did you know that spending time AWAY from your partner and enjoying time alone is equally important? Being able to do your own things and remain independent is necessary for every relationship.
When couples spend too much time together, it can create an unhealthy codependent relationship. Maintaining healthy boundaries and some autonomy helps build a marriage to last!
The fact that you are married or engaged to be married does not in any way mean that you have to spend all your time together. This is such a common misunderstanding where partners tend to believe that choosing to spend time alone means that the relationship is falling apart, not at all.
On the contrary, it is indeed signs of a healthy and strong relationship. Your relationship needs a healthy break-even as depicted by the songwriter – Chicago; “Even lover needs a holiday far away from each other.”
Co-dependent relationships are a type of dysfunctional helping relationship where one person supports or enables another person’s addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. They have good intentions, but unfortunately, it works negatively. It is an emotional and behavioral condition that affects one’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship. It is also considered as “relationship addiction” because people with codependency often form or maintain relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive and in most cases abusive.
Time alone, away from your lover, is healthy because time apart gives each partner an opportunity to decompress, to be themselves and to be secure with their identity outside of the relationship. In order to foster healthy interpersonal relationships, one needs to find contentment individually. While with your partner you may be doing everything to ensure their comfort and make them happy and helping them work through their feelings.
This can be emotionally draining and while you love them deeply, it is refreshing to seek your inner self-focus and simply rejuvenate. When you regularly take time for yourself, you grow your relationship both socially and romantically because you’ve given yourself time and space to miss your partner’s company. As a matter of fact, it is acknowledged that the couples who spent time out of one-two nights apart a month reported that they had more sex than those who do not because the timeout brings refreshment, they feel energized and recharged after spending time alone.
Relationships that seem perfect and in which the couple does everything together are at great risk of falling apart because it is human to feel imprisoned by the sense of being permanently together and always having to rely on one another for a source of fulfillment in everyday life. To enjoy an interdependent relationship it is important to have a sense of autonomous as well as attached.
However simply ensure that you reconnect in every way when you return back home. Live, love and thrive because you deserve it!
The writer is a Relationship Coach and Author, Marriage Built to Last.