Your Forever Person Should Have Their Own Life -- But It Should Overlap Yours

Your Forever Person Should Have Their Own Life — But It Should Overlap Yours

Your forever person shouldn’t hide you away inside their apartment. They shouldn’t restrict date nights to watching Netflix and grabbing fast food to eat back at their place. They shouldn’t keep you away from their friends, away from their parents, away from their coworkers. They shouldn’t create a huge divide between their life with you and their outside life with everyone else.

It’s not a good sign if your person hides you away from the rest of the world. You should be concerned if you have been together for a while and they still avoid updating their relationship status, putting a label onto your relationship, inviting you to holidays with the family, bringing you to work parties, taking you out for drinks with friends.

Your person is supposed to be excited about introducing you to everyone, so you can start to build relationships. Your person is supposed to make you feel involved in their world, because they have no plans of you leaving it. Your person is supposed to make room for you, because they are happier when you are around than when you are a text away.

You shouldn’t feel like an outsider in your own relationship. You shouldn’t feel like you only know a single side of this person you have been spending most of your time alongside.

You are supposed to get to know each other’s families and friends. You are supposed to have more than one-on-one time together. You are supposed to hang out in groups. You are supposed to socialize. Your lives are supposed to overlap.

This doesn’t mean you should be tied at the hip at all times. You are allowed to have your own friends. You are allowed to have separate hobbies. You are allowed to spend weekends apart and gravitate toward different social circles. You are allowed to maintain your independence.

Your person can spend Friday nights out with their friends — but there should be certain weekends when you get invited out with those friends. Your person can spend time at the gym every morning — but there should be days when you tag along with them. You should support their hobbies and their friendships. You should get involved when it’s appropriate.

When you find your forever person, you shouldn’t spend every waking moment together. You shouldn’t abandon your friends in order to hang out with them and you shouldn’t expect them to stop seeing their friends because you came along. But you shouldn’t choose your friends over your relationship either.

When you find your forever person, you should be comfortable spending time apart, but you shouldn’t spend too much time apart. You should involve them with your family, your friends, your hobbies. You should make them feel included, make them feel like you want them around, make them feel completely and utterly loved.

When you find your forever person, you shouldn’t give up your independence. You shouldn’t turn into a completely different person. You should have your own lives — but your lives should overlap. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Holly is the author of Severe(d): A Creepy Poetry Collection.

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