Does your partner have breathing room in your dating relationship? It is incredibly important for the person you are dating not to feel stifled, and the ability to retain their individuality. So what is breathing room, anyway? When you and your partner give each other the necessary space to have some alone time, you have breathing room. When you don't pressure your partner to change and allow for differences between the two of you. If you start to lose yourself and begin to change to what your partner expects you to be, you are not functioning in a mature dating relationship and you are doing a disservice to yourself and to your partner.
It's not fair for your partner to expect you to change to what he or she wants you to be. If you are involved in that type of a relationship, you should exit it immediately. You are worthy of more respect than your current partner is giving you. True love is unconditional and it means that we accept each other just as we are, imperfections and all.
An example of giving too much space is to allow your partner to have a lot of friends of the opposite sex and your partner starts to spend more time with them than with you. In order to be involved in a mature dating relationship, you need to set some boundaries and speak honestly with your partner about this and how it is making you feel. Possibly your partner has always had a lot of friends of the opposite sex and this seems normal to him or her. However, it is possible that you could start feeling threatened that your partner will start to feel more than platonic feelings for one or more of these friends. If these feelings are valid then you need to express them in a constructive way, while giving him or her some understanding of the background that has caused him or her to have a lot of friends of the opposite sex.
Does this mean that you should live with the fact that your partner has so much freedom and breathing room that he or she walks all over you? Of course not. You need to find that delicate balance between giving each other breathing room and stating the boundaries that you are willing to live with. For example, if you partner wants to hang out with his or her friends, should you stop this from happening? If you try to stop it, then they will either do it without your blessing or he or she will abide by your wishes and eventually grow bitter with you for not allowing this to happen. Socializing is actually a good thing; it allows you and your partner to experience that precious space that is healthy for your relationship. It's all about expressing your honest feelings about the issues that affect your relationship and working together to find the balance between space and having boundaries and living within a mature dating relationship.
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