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An independent and introverted personality
Love is a key part of my life 🥰. I love seeing my relationship as an indestructible pairing, but I still remain an independent person. I think this is due to my life path. I was single at university, which lasted about 5 years (more or less). Of course, that didn’t stop me from having one-night stands, but you can’t say they were very committed relationships 🤭! After that, I experienced a toxic relationship that was rather chaotic, which doesn’t help you to invest positively in the relationship.
👉 As a result, I learned to love solitude and be comfortable with myself. As an introvert, I’m not one of those people who like to party with their friends and go out all the time. No, on the other hand, I learned to do lots of activities that take up my time and sometimes leave little room for others.
That’s my profile, but for others, single habits are traveling alone, flirting with other people (without ever crossing the line), going to parties without their partner, etc. We all have single habits that we love, which is completely normal, it’s even becoming a social phenomenon 🧐.
Why is it good news to want to keep your single habits?
We may think it’s selfishness, wanting to keep our single/solo habits. That may be the case for some people, but according to the sexologist Sylvain Mimoun, to be happy in a relationship, you first need to please yourself 🤗. Oh yes, if you’re not fulfilled in a relationship, there’s no point in forcing yourself. In our collective imagination, we have the impression that relationship rhymes with self-sacrifice, as if the “we” crushed the “I”.
Female emancipation
It’s true that this is the image I would have had for my grandmother’s time. However, there’s no point in comparing with their time, or even our parents’ time, because society is no longer the same. Female emancipation and feminism are revolutionizing relationships (even if there’s still some work to do 😅). We no longer want men who see themselves as alpha males, we want to be independent and not carry the mental burden of the relationship on our shoulders. And who would complain about that, apart from the men themselves? Not all of them, of course, just those who grew up around toxic masculinity 🙃!
A cognitive dissonance
Well, I say that… It’s not as simple as that, even as a woman. Even if we’re for our emancipation, we grow up with norms and clichés that create a cognitive dissonance between our desires and reality. We become torn between giving ourselves wholeheartedly to our relationship and refusing to commit out of fear of sacrificing ourselves. In the first case, the most independent people can teeter on the edge of a romantic burn-out, and in the second case, we can close ourselves off in the fear of loving and miss out on beautiful love stories…
How can you reconcile independence and a relationship?
As you can see, you don’t have to deny yourself to be happy in a relationship. The sexologist says that you have to put the law of “all or nothing” to one side and try to achieve a balance, which he calls “shared egoism”. In other words, it’s a way of being single together!
📌 For me, this is how I was able to find a status quo in my relationship. As I said, I’m not an ultra-social person, and my partner is like me in this respect. However, we need time alone when we can each do our own thing. I’m lucky that this came about naturally, not least because we speak the same language of love and have the same principles. |
Compromise is the major solution
When the two personalities are quite different, and compromises need to be made. For this, we need to ask ourselves what freedom we need and ask our partner what theirs are. Communicating like this is the best way to move forward as a couple and build a healthy and solid foundation for the relationship. It’s all about balance, at the start of a new relationship you need to build the foundations if you don’t want the house of love to collapse 🏠.
👉 For a lot of couples, this involves not living together. Even if, personally, I think you need to be pretty well off financially and not everyone can do this. You also need to have no desire to build a family and have children, otherwise, it makes things a bit more complicated!
In any case, no matter how you manage to keep your single habits in a relationship, as you’ve seen, it’s key to your happiness! Respecting your individuality is essential and doesn’t prevent you from making plans together 🥰.
Editor’s note: Find the balance, the famous “shared egoism”As always, it’s all about balance and communication. You can keep some single habits while in a relationship, it isn’t incompatible as long as both partners agree. Being in a relationship isn’t a renunciation, it’s shared happiness. You may want to share some things, some moments, but also have time for yourself, and that’s just fine. If you’re having problems with this in your relationship, if the same patterns keep repeating themselves, don’t hesitate to make an appointment with a psychologist to understand, accept and finally be happy. 🤗 Understanding yourself, accepting yourself, being happy... It’s here and now! #BornToBeMe |
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