Relationships: Why Do Some People Lose Themselves When They Get Into A Relationship?

When two people get together and start a relationship, they can both have their own life. There is going to be how one person likes spend to their life and then there is going to be how the other person likes to spend their life.
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Through being together, certain parts of their life are naturally going to change, while there will be other parts that won’t. What is clear is that they won’t have as much time as they did before to focus on certain needs, and this is because they will spend a certain amount of time with the other person.

Adding Something Different

Still, this is not to say that being in a relationship will be something that will have a negative effect on their life. Some things may need to be put to one side and they might not have as much time as they did before to do certain things, but being with the other person will allow them to fulfil needs that were not being met before.

There will be the physical needs that they are able to meet, as well the emotional needs. They may even be at the stage in their life where they are ready start a family, so this is another need that they will be able to fulfil.

Healthy Dependence

And, through having someone in their life who they can depend on, it can make it a lot easier for them to achieve their goals and to be their best self. The support that the other person gives them can allow them to reach out for things that they wouldn’t have reached out for before.

What this comes down to is that no one is their own island; they need others in order to function at their best. Ultimately, these two people will be a team, and this is what will allow them to be stronger together.

Two Parts

Having said that, if they didn’t have their own life, along with what they do together, this wouldn’t be the case. This is why it will be essential for them to make sure they don’t neglect the things they were doing before they got together – that is, of course, unless it relates to something that is no longer suitable.

Their relationship will add to who they are, making it easier for them to perform at their best when they are not together, and what they do when they are not together will add to the relationship. Both parts of their life are then going to be important.

A Key Part

If they were unable to continue to pay attention to others areas of their life, their relationship would be radically different. But, the reason they can focus on others areas of their life, even though they are with someone, is likely be due to the fact that they have good boundaries.

Both of them will know where they begin and end, and where the other begins and ends. This will allow them to maintain their sense of self, while being able to share who they are with the other person.

Another Scenario

This doesn’t mean that there will never lose who they are; what it means is that this is not going to be the norm. While this is how some relationships will be, there are going to be plenty of others that will function differently.

There are going to be relationships where one person ends up doing what the other person wants them to do, along with what they think they want them to do. In the beginning they would have been two individuals but, as time went by, this would have changed.

Out of Touch

One of them is then going to act as though they are nothing more than an extension of their partner. Their partner is then not going to be another part of their world – they will be the centre of their world.

Their behaviour will have gradually changed to accommodate the other person’s needs, and this is naturally going to cause them to neglect themselves. So, as the days, weeks and months went by, they would have gradually become estranged from their true-self.

The Main Purpose

Their main priority, once they met this person, may have been to do whatever they could to please them. This is likely to have been something that they were not fully aware of.

Pleasing the other person will then have made them feel good in the beginning, yet there is the chance that their emotional state has changed as time has passed. When they are with this person, they may be used to feeling trapped, powerless, helpless, and angry, amongst other things.

What’s going on?

What this is likely to show is that they believe that it is not safe for them to main who they are when they get close to another person. Disconnecting from who they are and focusing on another’s persons needs is what will feel safe.

As one is an adult it can be hard to comprehend why this would be the case; after all, it is not as if they need this person to survive. Hoverer, the reason why they behave in this way as an adult is likely to be due to what took place during their early years.

Childhood

This may have been a time in their life when they had to focus on their caregiver’s needs, with their needs being overlooked. If they hadn’t of done this, they may have been abandoned or even harmed.

Being treated in this way would have stopped them from being able to develop a strong sense of self. In addition to this, it would have caused them to believe that they need to focus on others people’s needs in order to survive.

Awareness

Behaving in this way would have kept them alive as a child but now that they are an adult, it causing them to suffer unnecessarily. Their needs are just as important as anyone else’s needs.
If someone can relate to this, they may need to reach out for the assistance of a therapist or healer.