Thinking about the phase of life I am going through right now, I feel very blessed to have him enter my life. I must say that it is the first time I feel so secure and happy. Of course I would give much credits to my personal development journey which I was on before I met him, but there is just something different he brings to my life. For the first time, I do not feel tired planning to hang out with him and I genuinely feel energised after hanging out with him. This is such a blessed feeling. I must say that the journey to forming this relationship and our current situation has really opened my eyes and mind about many things. While reflecting on the start of our relationship, here are three factors I believe to be important to start a healthy relationship and one on the right note:
1.Independence
I recently came to realise that when one becomes committed to a relationship, it is very exciting to plan every aspect of your daily life together. Even when not physically together, it is really tempting to want to keep up with your partner’s life. This may sound like an exaggeration, but to let someone so close to your heart leave you temporarily to get about his/her day is not as easy as it sounds. It takes strength to be able to let him live his life, let you live your life and let both of you live together.
To be able to do so, both partners in the relationship must be able to live their life independently, in other words, do things alone. Being in a relationship may give us the habit of being with someone constantly and getting all your day-to-day things done with a companion. Therefore, it is very important to be able to cultivate the habit of striking a balance between being independent and being reliant on someone else. Such a habit is best built up before actually entering a relationship.
For me, what I believe to be optimal is to spend one-quarter of your time alone, one-quarter with your significant other, one-quarter with family and friends and one-quarter for your work. These quarters do not have to fit within a day unless you have 48 hours to spare a day. It can be split within a week, within a month or even within a few months (I highly recommend below 6 months). I must say that it is completely normal to not follow this plan strictly because you just can’t keep up! Me too! There are many times where I feel like I neglected myself because I am just too excited to spend more time with him that I end up sacrificing some me-time for us-time. I would say that this is completely ok if your energy levels are kept at healthy levels. If your energy levels are depleting below normal, do schedule in some me-time!
2. Trust, mutual understanding, communication
Trust is so so so important in a relationship because without trust, the relationship crumbles easily.
Here was how I built trust with him:
I communicated everything with him very clearly. Let’s be real, there are people out there ready to stir some shit in your relationship and sometimes they may not even know they are doing so (I hope). For example, a mutual friend came to share with me that my boyfriend could not get over his ex just last December and in January, he was chasing me. I did not ask about his ex because I feel like he was deeply hurt when this topic came up briefly previously. I also felt like a life buoy where he jumped onto me to feel better about his past instead of him genuinely liking me. What I did was I went straight to him and told him about what our mutual friend told me. He was really open about his past experiences and shared them readily with me. I was thankful that he was so open about it because he could have chosen to keep quiet and I would have respected his choice to do so, but I would have felt quite insecure about our relationship. I am also glad that I told him about the whole incident without over-thinking about it on my part.
Also, I think it is very important to be consistent. Regardless of how I am feeling (sometimes I just do not feel like doing anything) or what I am doing, I make sure to keep him updated on my life so that he knows I am not ‘ghosting’ him. He does the same too.
After some level of trust have been built up, it is easier to accept the fact that sometimes we just do not want to share some things and not doubt our relationship, and to not contact him in a day and know that he feels perfectly fine about it.
On the topic of trust, I believe that trust is very fragile. For some people, trust is like an eraser, the more you use it, the smaller it becomes. For me, trust is like glass. You bump it a little, maybe it is fine, perhaps with a crack or two. You drop it, it breaks and will never be pieced together again. It is very important to build and maintain trust carefully and consistently especially with a partner you want to be committed to.
If at this point, you suddenly ask yourself whether you trust your partner? Do not spiral into doubting your relationship yet! Trust is a process and not an end-point. It needs to be constantly built upon and maintained. Also, for me, trust is seasonal. There are seasons where I feel more down and a greater need to seek comfort in my partner. Trust may run slightly low here. There are seasons where I am brimming with energy and become over-occupied with my life - does not have to be work related, could be with self-care or self-indulgence. Trust may run high here. Of course there is always a limit to when you should start re-thinking your relationship, I think a good flag to start thinking about it is the amount of effort both of you put into the relationship, which brings me to my next point.
3. Effort
Everyone is busy. Everyone will always be busy. If both of you do not make time to meet each other, you will never meet. Both of you will need to put in effort to keep the relationship going. Some people may say that if the relationship requires effort, it is not worth it. I believe that falling in love should be effortless, but staying in love requires effort. The effort has to come from both parties. It does not have to be an equal split all the time because I think that whoever is more free can be the one taking the initiative. It is also important to note that everyone defines effort differently. Some people think that effort is making time, while others think that it is buying thoughtful gifts. Try working this out with your partner! You can try the Love Languages quiz to help you out! My partner and I tried it and we were really glad to be on the same page about our expression of love and effort. If yours differs, work it out and compromise a little! I believe that compromising a little helps make any relationship stronger because it shows that you have your own needs but you are also considering the needs of the other party.
To end things off, I just want to share that I am so thankful I have had the self-development journey before I met him. I believe that it was what helped us create a healthy relationship. Because I went on a journey of self-discovery and healing, I feel more grounded in my feelings and re-assured as a person. I did not need someone to validate me. I am ok alone and I am independent. I believe that it is important to have this phase of self-development before entering a relationship.
I hope that this blog post is comforting for you, gave you some advice or accompanied you well for the past 5 minutes or so (whichever suits you best). Feel free to leave a comment here or drop me an email if you have any questions or want to tell me something! Always happy to read them!
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