Showing scars: what are your relationship fears?

[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by Nattih

My fear is that I will have to completely give up my freedom. This has happened a lot in the past. I am an introvert and I have the need for short solo trips, solo walks, and sometimes just to sit in a coffee shop by myself to think and people watch. I have always been accused of not "really wanting" my significant other or "being afraid of being close" just because I do need time to myself. I have often been in relationships where they just wanted me to completely wrap myself up in their life.

My greatest fear is that it will come down to me having the choice to be alone forever or to be in a relationship and feeling entirely smothered due to my loss of freedom. Both are no-win situations, so I am hoping I can find someone who will understand that my time to myself doesn't impact my strong feelings and desire for my relationship.

This is a big one for me, too. I have had partners that could not wrap their heads around wanting time alone. There was not space in their mind for the concept. They could only see it as a rejection of them.

I am a very tightly wound person, and have had to learn the hard way that self-care is not an indulgence, it is actually necessary for me to be able to function productively in any context.

I started putting hard limits around certain days of the week and certain hours of the day about twelve years ago. If I do not have those periodic discharge/recharge periods between each role performance (director, student, daughter/sister/aunt, partner), I will have regrets for poorly-considered choices, unrecognized opportunities, forgotten talking points, math errors, typos, distractions, talking out of my ass, etc.

My current partner is really easy to be around, though. Sometimes we are on the couch together and I am reading or writing and she is watching HGTV and I actually forget she is in the room. She's totally self-actualized and can enjoy my proximity without demanding any attention at all

But it helps that she works Sundays and I don't, and I work occasional evenings and she doesn't. And that her workday starts four hours before mine does, even when I don't work late.