One word has been spinning in my head today, and I couldn't tell you for the life of me why, independence. The older one gets the more opportunities they have to gain different levels of independence. Eventually (to lead a normal life) it becomes essential to have a certain amount of independence and excel at using it in the right ways.
I can't even believe how much different my life is now than what it used to be even a year ago, in the blink of an eye I went from having no responsibilities and cares, to having a date book/planner that is filled with notes about errands, projects, work schedules and more than I can handle a lot of times. Trying to fit a social life, work, school and committees into my daily schedule is not an easy task but one that I've gotten better at lately (thankGod). This whole conversation about independence brings up one very important question, how independent should your life be from that of your significant other?
There have definitely been times (especially in highschool, ick) in the past when I have failed at balancing seeing my friends with seeing my boyfriend but these days there are even more things to add into the equation (like that date book/planner I mentioned). We both have such hectic lives and different things we have to try to work around, but we always find time together. I think me and my boyfriend have struck a good balance but I know a lot of couples that have trouble with it, like I still do occasionally.
How often should I stay up late with him the night before my paper is due? How often should I spend a night in with him instead of going out? Well, most of the time I find a middle ground and we both seem happy with the arrangement. With my last boyfriend, we had no part in each others lives, he knew none of my friends at school and I never hung out with his friends at all. I really like that Josh is involved in my life at school without being there 24/7. He's very understanding when I need time for schoolwork, and a lot of times, he's willing to help my study and quiz me on Italian words (whata guy, right?).
So here's my question for you, how connected is YOUR life to the life of your significant other?
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Comments (7)
I'm in a long distance relationship, he's away at uni and we see each other every other weekend, we have our allocated time together and it also helps us to maintain our own, separate social lives, which I don't think is a bad thing. I get on with his friends from uni when I go up there and he knew all my friends down here before he left. When he comes back to visit/for holidays we see equal amounts of his friends and mine. We probably do spend too much time just alone together when he comes back for holidays but we just want to make the most of the time when he's not living away. We're pretty connected in each others lives, he's involved me in his church and family things and I've involved him with my family. I think we have a really good balance, partly created by the long distance thing, we struggled with it more before he moved away because we tended to just see each other and my friends and not his.
when i was with my ex, we were pretty involved in each other's life, we used to work together, we shared mutual friends and we hung out with each other's friends all the time. i mean i enjoyed it a lot because we were always together even though we didn't see each other too much because we didn't live in the same city.
I did this with my ex, and now with my current bf, I seem to drop everything, including friends, to spend all my time with him. Of course when he's busy I sit at home, or sometimes call a friend. Of course they are usually busy by the time I want to go out..
I mean is it such a bad tthing that I want to see him as much as possible?
Well, we're engaged, and live together, so we do pretty much everything together once he's home from work. I'm actually going out all by myself tomorrow night for the first time, um, ever, haha, so that might be an adjustment.
Because I'm a full time student/full time single parent/and seeking employment I don't have time for a significant other much less a social life. My responsibility's trump my life period end of story.
I was in a long distance relationship before we got married. Usually we would talk for several hours every evening and drive to see each other about once a month. Since we didn't have a chance to be together daily though, we were both quite able to keep up with our own lives and friends.
Now that we're married, our lives are obviously very connected though I still sometimes need my space and have been known to head out for a week-long road trip alone. Haha.
@tangerinedreaming@xanga - That happened with my ex..He wanted to spend every day together though, so it wasn't just me. On the days he was busy, I'd be at home bored. My friends all ditched me for their bf's so it was pointless trying to hang out with them. I don't think it's a bad thing, depending on how much time you wanted to spend with him.