Choosing Yourself Without Losing Your Partner

Live Class Recording - Choosing personal growth, space, or clarity doesn’t have to mean choosing disconnection.
This session looks at how to maintain a strong relationship with the self while also being present in a shared relationship dynamic — and how the two can actually support each other.

Transcript

Choosing yourself without losing your partner.

And I prepared a couple of things I want to go through,

But I want to start with a definition.

Choosing yourself means prioritizing your values,

Your needs,

And emotional health.

It doesn't mean that you reject your relationship.

Now,

That makes sense.

That sentence in itself,

It's something that I would say many people would agree when they hear it,

That this is what it means to choose you when you prioritize your values,

Your needs,

Your mental,

Emotional health.

But here comes the first but.

Prioritizing can also mean that sometimes you choose to step back and don't prioritize your values,

Needs,

And emotional health over that of your partner.

And what I mean by that,

I have prepared an example from my own experience with my partner.

And what I mean by that is sometimes what I do is to ask myself,

How far am I willing to go?

And one particular example is football.

He loves football,

And he loves watching football on the telly.

He loves watching football live.

He loves watching football if we just pass a field and they are playing.

He loves to watch it.

OK,

So he wants me to come and be there and experience games with me at home,

In front of the telly,

When we walk or when we're in the stadium.

And now I personally think football is OK.

For me,

It's very boring watching it on the telly.

And in the stadium,

I like it because probably the atmosphere.

I love the atmosphere.

I love when they chant,

Et cetera.

So I love the whole experience,

Not just them playing.

So I said to him,

You see,

I think it's very boring for me to just watch in front of the telly.

But he said,

But I would love to experience this with you.

And I said,

OK,

How far am I willing to go?

Because from experience,

I know I will be bored.

But I thought,

I've never done it with him.

So I've never watched a football game with him.

And I said to him,

OK,

I try it.

I try it.

See it once,

How it goes.

But if I'm bored or if I get to a point where it just doesn't grab me and I want to do something else,

I want you to be OK with that.

And we agreed on that.

He said,

OK,

Whenever the time comes,

But please give it a good try.

And I said,

I give it a good try.

And so we did.

So I was willing to try again due to me asking myself,

What am I willing to give up?

How far am I willing to go?

Where is the border,

The boundary,

The limit for me?

And it turns out I'm OK to watch one half of a game.

But then it's very hard for me to go back and watch the other half.

That's where I usually just like.

But even though it was at for him at first a bit disappointing for me to tell him,

Look,

I'm not looking forward to it.

It's more the opposite.

It's he wanted me to be as excited as he is.

And he is fully in there.

Yeah,

They score and you are amazing.

And me like,

Yeah,

I can't fake the enthusiasm.

And I said,

This is if you want this,

You can have it for 45 minutes.

And he says,

OK,

That's OK with me.

So we're both happy.

I changed my priorities or I changed my needs and my emotional health.

I thought,

Where is the boundary?

Where is the limit?

And he did as well.

So that's my first but.

The other but is,

Although I called it here,

Although often we don't choose ourselves,

Often we don't prioritize ourselves because we're afraid of hurting or losing our partner.

Because.

Of course,

I ran the risk when I told him no.

And he would say,

What's wrong with you?

Why not?

Can't you do that for me?

Because that would be a very common reaction.

What I know from clients and what I know from my own experience,

That the other person says,

Why not do it for me?

And of course you could do it.

But.

It wouldn't be fun for either of you.

That's the other thing.

And that's where the lying starts.

That's where the disconnect starts.

And that's where the resentment starts.

When you either tell your partner.

You want them to come with you,

Even though they don't want to,

Even though they say,

I will be very bored and I don't even want to try it.

And you try to convince them.

Or if you don't tell them what you want.

If you just pretend that,

OK,

I'm here with you.

He loves it.

She loves it.

OK,

I love it too.

Never.

As well.

That's where the resentment starts.

And we don't want that.

Now,

I prepared examples of choosing yourself.

How does that look like?

And the first one is.

Turning down a shared goal that doesn't work for you anymore.

And that can be everything I've written down here as examples,

Location to live.

It can be a lifestyle.

It can be children.

It can be pets.

It can be values.

It can be literally anything that you when you started dating or at the beginning of your marriage,

You both were OK with it.

And over time.

Things have changed for you.

And it's important that you communicate these changes to your partner.

And it's important that you let them have their time to think about what you said and let them have that time to think about what they want.

And also let them be OK if they don't want to continue or if you don't want to continue,

Particularly when it comes to kids,

I've seen that with some clients where the one partner said,

OK,

I'm willing to how you say that,

Let go of my dream of having kids for my partner.

And they lied to themselves.

The resentment started and the disconnect came shortly after.

So we don't want that.

Another example of choosing yourself is investing in coaching or therapy for you,

Not just us.

And when I work with my clients,

We focus on the individual.

Even when I work with couples,

We work on the individual because what happens quite often is when you do group or couples therapy or coaching is that the other person wants to do it better than the other or for the other.

So there's always some comparison,

Compassion and looking after the other person.

But often it's not as honest and open as when I work with them individually.

So I work with them individually and every couple of weeks we work together as in a group session or couple session.

That works,

In my case,

In my experience,

Best because focusing on yourself is important so that you understand why you do the things you do.

And then it's good to ask someone else,

How is your interpretation of my behavior?

How does it come across in your specific case?

Because everyone is different.

Everyone might have a different interpretation about your behavior,

About your thoughts,

Et cetera.

So investing in coaching and therapy for you.

And another thing is taking me time.

And the question here is,

What does it mean?

It can mean literally from walking around the block once or twice a day.

It can be just taking a breath and being on the loo for half an hour and just whatever me time means to you,

Make sure you have it.

I remember the first time my partner and I went on holiday and I didn't have the me time.

I was fidgety.

It's like under pressure it felt to me.

And I also was snappy.

My mood wasn't the best.

And at one point he looked at me and he knew that I spent a lot of me time before we went on holiday or in my day to day life.

So he asked me,

Is it possible that you need some time alone?

And I didn't think about it.

I was scared.

We're on holiday.

We should spend time together.

I can't just go off and be by myself.

And I said,

Yeah,

I think I might.

And he said,

Okay,

Off you go.

Come back in half an hour,

An hour.

I will be here or I will be at beach.

You'll find me.

And that's what we did.

And it was okay.

So it's okay.

And sometimes your partner might not react the way you want them to react,

Which is okay as well,

Because you had this in your head probably for a couple of days,

Weeks,

Months,

Years even.

And it might be news to them.

So give them time to adapt to this information,

What that means to them and for them and give them also the chance to come back to you and say,

Hey,

I'm not okay with this or what about this?

Just saying.

And of course,

The advantages for taking time,

Choosing yourself,

Prioritizing yourself without losing your partner is it keeps you grounded and clear in your relationship when you're honest and you give both of you the space to be open,

Be true and to talk about things and not take everything personal.

That's a great foundation for a relationship.

And when you do that,

It models a healthy autonomy to your partner.

So because I do what I do,

I'm quite good or I've become very good in taking time for myself now.

And I can see when my partner is talking to my stepson,

He says,

Have you taken time for yourself?

So he sees the benefits.

He himself has gotten better as well with me time to enjoy the time by himself and relax in that me time.

And now he's an advocate to his children to say,

Hey,

Try this.

It's amazing.

And it also deepens mutual respect and self-trust.

And self-trust is something that is very important for yourself because you can trust yourself or you learn to trust yourself in what do I need?

What am I willing to give up or where is my limit?

And when you trust yourself that you do it to that limit or that you stick to your values because you say,

Hey,

My limit is very,

Very close to me,

That there is not much space for negotiations.

That's fine.

But trust yourself that if that boundary gets overstepped,

This is what's going to happen.

So next or last two points is what to do to choose yourself and stay connected.

And the first thing is,

What does choosing me look like for you?

Each of us has their own interpretation and meaning,

But also different things are important to you than to me.

So find out what choosing me means.

Be clear,

Be very clear on it,

Not just generic words like being loyal or having freedom.

What does that look like?

What does freedom look like?

What does it entail?

And give a scenario ideally so that you are very clear on what you're talking about here.

And clarify what place do you come from when you choose you?

Because sometimes we choose,

You choose you,

I choose me with fear and anger.

In our body,

In our mind,

In our soul.

And then we push our partner away and we do it because,

Of course,

We want to protect ourselves.

So we push the other person,

Our partner away and say,

I choose me.

I need to go.

And it's a bit dramatic often.

At least that's what it was for me over 20 years ago.

And I thought I would choose me,

Which I did in some way,

But we don't want to come from a place of fear,

Of anger,

Of resentment.

We want to come from a place of love,

Compassion and trust ourselves,

Self-trust and say,

OK,

I'm OK with this and not I need to protect myself,

Run off and push the partner away and then probably have a conflict that you will escalate into an argument.

So make clear first,

What does choosing me means?

And secondly,

When do you choose you?

What place are you in when you choose you?

And that brings me to the end of my lecture today.