{"id":18280,"date":"2019-02-28T01:00:08","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T09:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/datemixstaging.wpengine.com\/?p=18280"},"modified":"2021-11-04T07:57:22","modified_gmt":"2021-11-04T14:57:22","slug":"losing-your-identity-in-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zoosk.com\/date-mix\/relationship-advice\/losing-your-identity-in-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"You Are the Sun: How to Avoid Losing Your Identity in Relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019m a BIG believer in therapy. I think everyone should be in therapy. We are all constantly growing and changing and struggling and overcoming. We all have things we could use an unbiased person to help us work on. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, one of my big struggles has always been maintaining my identity in relationships. Honestly, relationships of any kind. Romantic and friendships. I struggle to find balance between my personal life and my professional life. I can be guilty of becoming single-minded; for example, I\u2019ll go through phases of life where I morph into such a social butterfly, I let my work completely slip. Or I\u2019ll get so caught up in the guy I\u2019m dating, I\u2019ll lose touch with my friends for a season. Or I\u2019ll get completely wrapped up in work and allow it to completely eclipse everything else. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where does this lack of balance stem from? Well, for one thing, I\u2019m human. I think humans in general struggle with balance in their lives. But in my case, and I suspect this is true for a lot of people, it\u2019s also because I tend to attribute my worth to other people. How other people are treating me or responding to me or loving me or not loving me tends to be the compass I follow for determining how I\u2019m going to treat myself or love myself. That\u2019s why I often get so wrapped up in other people and in earning their approval or time or love or attention that I completely lose track of myself. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that, my friends, is a recipe for a completely unbalanced life. Why? Because it\u2019s all backwards. YOU have to determine your worth, and then other people will fall in line with your beliefs. If you wait around on other people to decide how you\u2019re going to feel about yourself on any particular day, you will always be miserable, unhappy, and unfulfilled. If you wait around on other people to \u201ccomplete\u201d you, you will always be unfinished. No matter what Jerry Maguire said.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, as my therapist put it so succinctly a few weeks ago\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou are the sun in your solar system. Everyone else in your life rotates around you. You do not rotate around them.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good grief, did you just hear all the mics in all the land drop after that, or is it just me?!? It reminded me of one of my all-time favorite Grey\u2019s Anatomy quotes, said by Cristina to Meredith about Dr. McDreamy:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t let what he wants eclipse what you need. He\u2019s very dreamy, but he\u2019s not the sun. You are.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How many of you, like me, have surrendered your sunlight to stand in someone else\u2019s shade? Last year I got into a very serious relationship with someone, probably the most serious relationship I\u2019ve ever been in. We fell in love and things moved very fast and we were talking marriage and everything. And I was so excited to find this great love that I completely, and I mean COMPLETELY, surrendered myself to the relationship. Which sounds really lovely and romantic in theory, but in reality, tends to spell disaster for a relationship. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? Because when the other person met you, they fell for the you that had a life other than them. And when that busy, vibrant, full life gets pushed to the side in order to make the relationship the center of your universe, everything gets thrown off balance. In my case, when I met my ex, I was finishing up my fourth book and spending lots of time with friends and had tons of other things going for me and my life other than that relationship. In other words: I was the sun. And I was shining brilliantly. And that\u2019s who my ex fell for. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But slowly, a little at a time, I made him the sun. And I stopped shining. And the more I made him the sun, the darker and colder our relationship became. I even went against my gut several times at key moments in our relationship in order to keep him happy, and keep him as the sun, at my own expense. For example, he pushed me to meet his two small children really quickly and it felt way too fast for me. But I was scared to speak up and say so, for fear of hurting his feelings or making him feel like I didn\u2019t want to meet the kids (I did, just not so quickly). Ultimately, I went with his timeline instead of my own. The same thing happened again the first time he told me he loved me. I knew I was on my way to falling in love with him, but I wasn\u2019t quite there yet and wasn\u2019t ready to say the words. Yet I went against my gut and said it back because I didn\u2019t want to push him away by seeming noncommittal or like I wasn\u2019t as into him as he was me. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, the more I rotated around him and the more I sacrificed my needs for his wants, the more our relationship deteriorated. You can guess what happened next. He broke up with me one Monday night in a ten minute long phone conversation that wasn\u2019t anywhere near worthy of the seriousness of our relationship. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where did I go wrong? I made him the sun. I didn\u2019t maintain any sort of balance or set healthy boundaries in the relationship. And the relationship spun off its axis until there was no way to recover.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how can you make sure you remain the sun in your relationships? Here are a few easy tips:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Maintain your life outside of him. <\/b>
\n<\/span>Don\u2019t be that girl who completely bails on her life, her friendships, and her hobbies for any man. You don\u2019t need to see him every night of the week. My ex and I would often sacrifice sleep to spend time together and wind up exhausted and miserable the next day. That inevitably leads to resentment and is not a healthy foundation for a relationship. Keep going to the gym, keep having girls\u2019 nights out, and keep up with your self-care. A relationship is designed to add to your already awesome life, not become your life.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Set healthy boundaries and listen to your gut. <\/b>
\n<\/span>Establish how many days you\u2019re going to see him in a week and don\u2019t apologize for it. If you\u2019re not ready to take a great big relationship steps like meeting the kids or saying I love you, don\u2019t. A relationship that isn\u2019t a two-way street is a dead-end road.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Finally, throw out the notion that you need anyone or anything to \u201ccomplete\u201d you. <\/b>
\n<\/span>You\u2019re already a whole, complete person just as you are. Or as I like to say, you are the cake and a relationship is the icing. With or without the icing, a cake is still a cake!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my favorite quotes by Jennifer Aniston says this: \u201cA relationship isn\u2019t going to make me survive. It\u2019s the cherry on top.\u201d So in other words: YOU be the cake, the sundae, the sun. Let him be the icing, the cherry, and the stars in your solar system. That\u2019s how to maintain your identity in relationships, and how to have your cake and eat it, too. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever surrendered your sunlight to stand in someone else\u2019s shade? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":18281,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[894,891],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-relationships","category-relationship-advice"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Avoid Losing Your Identity in Relationships<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Throughout life, we all grow, learn, and change over time. 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