6 Things You Need to Remember When You Are in a Relationship
Being in love can be a magical thing; suddenly, the whole world seems like a lighter, brighter place. The honeymoon period of a new relationship is an exciting time, which can leave you feeling giddy with happiness.
Relationships are complicated. Each relationship is not only unique; it continues to evolve over time too. Navigating your way through a relationship is a journey that’s full of many ups and downs along the way. The problem is that there is no instruction manual to help you understand relationships. The rules of love are not black and white; there are significantly more gray areas. Instead, everyone has to tread their own path in a relationship, but having a little guidance now and then is useful too.
Keeping a relationship healthy is something that needs continual work. Amid a romance, it is all too easy to lose your perspective. When the honeymoon period comes to an end, you may start to question the relationship. You may begin to wonder whether it is still right for you and whether it is something that you want to keep working on.
There are many issues that can face couples within their relationships. Being aware of them is the first step to taking action to either prevent or resolve them. Here are some of the factors you need to be mindful of to keep your relationship on track. Being aware of these should help keep your relationship healthy for you and your partner both as individuals and as a couple.
Make Time for Others
At some time or another, everyone has been an abandoned friend. Your best pal meets their perfect partner, and then suddenly, they are busy every night spending time with them. While you probably felt happy for your friend, you probably also felt a little put out that all your conversations revolved around their new love interest.
Friendships are often sacrificed in the course of a new romance. Spending less time with your friends when you get a new partner is normal, but if you stop being in touch altogether, then you run the risk of damaging those friendships forever. This may not seem like a problem when you spend all your time with your partner. However, it can leave you feeling alone and isolated if things don’t work out.
Having a little space from your partner is healthy and can make the time you do spend together more about quality than quantity. All relationships can enrich your life, whether they are with your partner, family, or friends, so try not to damage them by neglecting them.
Don’t Lose Yourself
A relationship is all about two people taking a journey together. The problem is that two people will have two very different ideas about the world, relationships, and life in general. Therefore, whenever two people come together, a whole new dynamic is created. This means different opinions and beliefs collide. Differences of opinion and arguments are a normal part of a relationship, so it is important to remember that in most cases thinking differently about things doesn’t make either you or your partner wrong or right.
People often mistakenly believe that love means never arguing. Picking fights for no reason, is of course, deeply unhelpful. However, not arguing can be damaging. If you do everything in your power to avoid an argument, you will lose your sense of self. Always allowing your opinions to be dismissed and invalidated is a sign of a toxic relationship, and will cause resentment to build up.
It is vital to remember that you are an individual, and so is your partner. You may believe they are the best thing to have happened to you, but that doesn’t mean that you should forsake yourself to be with them. Abandoning your hobbies and preferences to align with your partner’s will cause you to lose your identity and your uniqueness.
Don’t Compare
A quick scroll through Instagram or Facebook can soon send you into a frenzy of relationship envy. You can be left questioning your relationship when your newsfeed is full of perfect couples, with perfect relationships telling the world how much they love one another.
No matter how perfect a relationship appears on social media, you can be pretty confident that the reality isn’t all hearts and flowers. Don’t forget that people only show the bits they want people to see on social media. The posts are merely a snapshot and don’t represent the reality of being in a relationship.
Essentially, your relationship is private, and no one truly knows what happens in a relationship apart from the people actually in it. It’s entirely possible that couples that overshare on social media are doing so to claim their possession of each other, to seek validation from others in the form of likes and comments, or they could even be sharing to make someone else jealous. The reality is that you will never know, and so try not to compare your relationship to edited highlights of other people’s that you see online.
Signs to Look Out For
While every relationship is different, it is vital to be able to recognize the signs of an unhealthy relationship so that you can keep yourself safe. Spotting the signs of coercive, toxic relationships is a subject that features heavily in the press right now. However, despite it being discussed more widely, it can still be hard to spot the signs when you are actually in a relationship.
Keeping your sense of self can help you to spot the signs of a toxic relationship more quickly. Remember that being in a toxic relationship is not a sign of weakness; it is merely a sign of a relationship that is not working.
Knowing what your boundaries are and what is important and acceptable to you can help you to protect yourself in any relationship. If you do find yourself in a toxic relationship, these boundaries should help you to spot the signs faster and take the appropriate action.
Don’t forget that no one deserves to be trapped in an unhappy relationship. Relationships feature both good and bad times, but if something doesn’t feel right, you shouldn’t ignore it and hope that it goes away. A romantic relationship should enrich your life and not make it miserable.
Don’t Rebound into a Relationship
Everyone knows someone who can’t be without a significant other. These people bounce from one relationship to the next, so that you have barely had time to remember their current beau’s name before they have moved onto the next.
Moving into new relationships with no break between them can make life seriously complicated, and allows no time at all for healing. Rebound relationships are often a way of masking past hurt, without actually dealing with it. Of course, sometimes, the ‘love of your life’ may appear in your world at around the same time your relationship has ended. However, if you are merely seeking another relationship so that you are not alone, you should think carefully about this. Doing this means that you run the risk of making your feelings even more complicated and feeling even worse if this relationship comes to an end too. Not forgetting the new person you are in a relationship with, who probably is unaware that they could become collateral damage.
Trust your gut instinct; when your relationship has ended, you will know deep down when you feel ready to get involved romantically with someone else. You may have no interest at all in having a relationship but prefer to have some fun by using free chat lines rather than going straight back out into the dating scene. Ultimately, how you proceed after a break up is entirely up to you, and you should never feel under pressure to meet the expectations of others at a time like this. Only you know when you are ready.
Why You Don’t Need to Be in a Relationship
The human race has reached many milestones in recent years in terms of acceptance and understanding. However, one area where this is severely lacking is where relationships are concerned. There still seems to be a kind of stigma among some people about being single. Life as a single person is often viewed as a temporary state to be in until Prince Charming comes along and sweeps you off your feet. Don’t get sucked in! Not everyone is spending their time hanging out waiting to be rescued. Not everyone feels they need to find their ‘other half’ to be complete. Some even prefer to be single and take care of themselves, especially with the help of sex machines. The truth is there is nothing wrong with being single, whether it’s temporarily or permanently.
If you meet someone and want to be in a relationship, then go for it. Approaching a relationship from the angle that it is something to enjoy, and by no means, a necessity will help you to keep your perspective. This should enable you to enjoy your relationship for what it is, not because you believe you need it to validate yourself.