#140 How to Not Lose Yourself in a New Relationship
Are you someone who tends to go from 0 to 100 at the start of a new relationship? In today's episode, we're exploring how to not lose yourself when you start dating someone new (although the advice also applies to people already in an established relationship who feel they've lost touch with themselves). This dynamic is particularly common among those with an anxious attachment style, who tend to become overly fixated on a connection at the expense of other areas of life.
Tune in for tips on how to pace yourself in the early stages of a relationship so that you can deepen into a connection in a balanced, sustainable way that sets you up for long-term security and success.
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Maintaining Your Identity in New Relationships
When embarking on a new romantic journey, the excitement can be palpable. The rush of dopamine when we see their name pop up on our phones, the thrill of getting to know someone on a deeper level, and the joy of crafting future plans together can be incredibly intoxicating. However, amidst this whirlwind of new emotions, it's vital that we don't lose ourselves—an occurrence all too common, particularly for those with anxious attachment styles.
The Excitement of New Love
It's completely normal to feel exhilarated when you meet someone new. This feeling should be embraced as a beautiful part of the dating experience. However, it's crucial to balance this excitement with the maintained presence of your own life and interests. Otherwise, this attachment can quickly become overwhelming, leading to potential neglect of personal responsibilities and relationships.
The Risks of Losing Yourself
For those with an anxious attachment style, the urge to merge lives immediately can be tempting. This might manifest as a disregard for personal hobbies, excessive availability, or even modifying behaviours to please the new partner. Such actions often result from an underlying fear of loss or rejection, driving individuals to immense lengths to secure their new relationship.
However, this enmeshment can lead to relationships developing at an unsustainable pace, often not reflecting the true depth or potential longevity of the connection. Moreover, it exposes one to heightened vulnerability should the relationship alter or end, as their entire emotional ecosystem becomes dependent on its survival.
Preserving Your Identity
Maintaining your own identity within the context of a new relationship is crucial. Here are practical steps to ensure you stay true to yourself even as you navigate the complexities of a new romance.
Continue Pursuing Personal Interests
Keep engaged with your hobbies and interests. Whether it's painting, hiking, reading, or other activities that foster your sense of self, continuing these can provide a healthy balance in your life. These activities not only nurture your well-being but also make you a more interesting and well-rounded partner.
Keep Your Social Networks Vibrant
Do not sideline friends and family for the sake of a new relationship. These relationships were part of your life before your new partner and should remain so. Balancing time between your partner and your loved ones is crucial in maintaining healthy boundaries and perspectives.
Communicate Openly and Honestly
From the onset, be clear about your needs and boundaries. This doesn’t mean setting rigid rules for your relationship but rather expressing your feelings, desires, and limits in an open, honest way. Suppressing your true self can lead to resentment and dissatisfaction, which are detrimental to any relationship.
Self-reflection and Awareness
Recognise any tendencies to merge too quickly or intensely in relationships. Awareness is the first step to change, and by acknowledging these patterns, you can make conscious choices that foster healthier relationship dynamics.
Trust the Process
If a relationship is meant to endure, it will not require constant momentum or oversight to survive. True connections will thrive even when both partners maintain their independence and individuality. Trust that taking things slowly can often lead to stronger, more resilient relationship foundations.
Attractiveness of Autonomy
Remember, being an individual with a full, engaging life is inherently attractive. Independence is appealing, and a partner who respects your need for personal space and pursuits is likely one who will foster a supportive and loving relationship.
Balancing the excitement of a new relationship with the maintenance of your own identity is essential. While it's easy to get caught up in the romance, ensuring that you remain true to yourself and your personal values is key to building a sustainable and fulfilling partnership.
Embrace the new connection, enjoy the bliss, but keep your feet firmly planted in your own beautifully complex life. In doing this, you not only maintain your sense of self but also set the stage for a healthier and more balanced relationship.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Have you found yourself losing your identity in new relationships? Reflect on why this might happen and identify any patterns from past experiences.
Consider the concept of ‘red flags’ discussed in the episode. What might be some personal red flags for you that indicate you are losing yourself in a relationship?
Think about the role of hobbies, friends, and routine in your life. How do you maintain these when entering a new relationship? Do you think prioritizing these aspects of your life could influence the quality of your romantic relationships?
Explore the idea of maintaining boundaries early in a relationship. Have there been times when you didn’t set clear boundaries? What were the consequences, and how could you approach this differently in the future?
Discuss how the excitement of a new relationship can lead to anxiety and insecurity. How can recognizing this early on change how you manage new relationships?
Reflect on times you might have ‘shrunk’ yourself to avoid rocking the boat in a relationship. What did you suppress and why? How did it affect the relationship and your sense of self?
Assess the balance between autonomy and emotional connection in your relationships. Do you find it challenging to maintain your independence while forming deep connections, and how might you better manage this balance?
Consider your approach to communicating needs and desires in a relationship. Are you straightforward, or do you find it challenging? What steps can you take to improve this?
Reflect on the effects of building a relationship based on inauthentic presentations of yourself. What are the long-term impacts of not being true to yourself in a relationship?
Evaluate your recovery process after a relationship where you felt you lost yourself. What strategies helped you reclaim your identity and autonomy?
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
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Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:32]:
In today's episode, I'm answering the listener question of how to not lose yourself in a new relationship. So this is a pretty common conundrum, I think, particularly among people with anxious attachment patterns. As we know, there is a tendency to really go all in on a new relationship, a new connection that you're really excited about, and that can mean that you neglect other areas of life and can become so laser focused on, you know, the new connection to the exclusion of all else, in a way that crosses over into being maybe not so healthy. So, I think it's a really good question and one that I'm excited to share some thoughts on because I think it'll be relevant to many, many of you who struggle with anxious attachment and notice this pattern within yourself. So, that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, a reminder, if you listened to the last episode, that I'm running a 50% off sale, for the next few weeks on all of my master classes and my two courses that are available for sale. So everything including healing anxious attachment, which isn't currently open for enrollment, but you can save 50% off any of those master classes or courses with the code hey baby, all one word, which is a nice little way for me to offer you something while I'm a little less active, while I'm taking care of my new baby, and a way for you to support my work at this very special time if you feel so inclined to. So
[00:02:18]:
okay. Let's talk about how to not lose yourself in a new relationship. So as I said, really, really common, right, that people, and not just anxiously attached people, I should say, I should kind of set the scene a little. I think we need to normalize that new relationships are super exciting for everyone. There's this chemical cocktail that just feels so good, and, you know, the dopamine and, like, all of that, it's just like you know, it does feel like you're kind of intoxicated, by this person, by the excitement, by the pursuit. You know, you light up every time you get a text message from them, and it makes your whole day brighter, and you can't stop thinking about them, and you're so excited to see them next. All of those things. Right? And I don't wanna be, like, the fun police who comes in and says, like, oh, that's all your anxious attachment, and you need to immediately stop all of that because it's bad. I don't think that that's true, true, and I don't think we need to be so extreme in our condemnation of that.
[00:03:21]:
Right? A lot of that is not only normal, but a really lovely part of exploring a new connection. So let's get that out of the way. You don't need to shame yourself for being excited about a new connection. But there is a but. I'm sure you felt that coming. I think we can also acknowledge that for folks with more anxious attachment patterns, it can get a little extreme, the extent to which we are consumed by, you know, this new connection, that feels, you know, not only exciting, but maybe stops us from being able to engage with other areas of our life, or we feel like we don't have interest or capacity to, you know, pay attention at work, or maybe you start canceling on friends, or making sure you're available 247 just in case this new person that you're seeing wants to hang out with you even, you know, in the absence of any actual plans, and kind of really giving over yourself to the relationship, in a way that neglects other areas of life. Now I think the problem with this, in case it's not obvious, is that we can kind of over index on that, and that can not only mean that we take a new relationship at a pace that maybe doesn't match where the relationship is at? You know, we're giving it a level of, you know, attention and intensity, that kind of is a mismatch on how well we know the person, maybe how invested they are in us. But it also makes us really vulnerable to anything going wrong. So, again, I've spoken about this before on the show, but I think where anxiously attached people, in particular, can really struggle is that, you know, you make your whole life about this other person that maybe you've only just started seeing, and all of a sudden, you are kind of your world revolves around them.
[00:05:27]:
You really drop all of the other balls to keep this front and center in your, you know, attention, in your field of vision, then I think that it really raises the stakes and increases the pressure on that connection. Right? So if anything then shifts or changes or, you know, God forbid, the relationship ends, you've got a long way to fall because you've really put that person and that relationship on a pedestal. And, you know, you've maybe neglected the other parts of life that allow you to feel like a healthy, balanced person with, you know, lots going on. When we put all of our eggs in one basket and then, you know, drop the basket, it can feel really devastating, and we can feel really isolated and ashamed and foolish even, if something goes wrong. And I think that then impacts our self worth, which then makes us more likely to do the same thing again next time and so on and so forth. So I think that, you know, the first piece here is knowing that that's something that you do. You know, I've said before I don't really like to use the language of red flags too much, because I think it's a bit overused and, actually, just makes people a bit paranoid and stressed, when they're dating, when they're, you know, on the hunt for red flags. But to the extent that we're gonna talk about red flags, I think talking about your own personal red flags, as in the things that you do at the start of a connection, that, you know, is part of your own pattern of not so healthy relationship stuff.
[00:07:07]:
I think recognizing that, okay, I get really intense and obsessive, and all I wanna do is talk to this person and see this person, you know, I stop working out, or I stop paying attention at my job, or, you know, making plans with friends, or whatever else. I don't ever wanna be unavailable to the new person. All of those things might be part of your kind of red flag profile for yourself, that you can identify and be aware of. So, you know, a lot of the time when people say things to me like, I can't help doing x, I think that, you know, reminding yourself, like, I I I always say to people, like, just kinda drop that story. Right? Stop telling yourself that you have no control and that you can't help it, because I think the more we say that and the more we believe it, it kind of gives us an excuse to just behave in ways that we know are not healthy for us. So, recognising that, okay, yeah, this is part of my pattern. That might be, you know, my muscle memory, my default, but I actually don't have to do that. And, frankly, if I just blindly follow those impulses, then there's a really good chance that I'm gonna get more of what I've gotten in the past.
[00:08:23]:
And if I don't like what I've gotten in the past, then I'm gonna need to do something differently in the way I approach things. And I think for a lot of people, that can feel hard because, again, when you're not only just excited about a connection, but I think with anxious attachment, there tends to be insecurity in there. So it's not just, I'm really excited about this person, but if I don't go at a 1000000 miles an hour, then I'm gonna lose it. It's gonna slip away. They're gonna find someone else. So I kind of need to sink my teeth in and, you know, expedite things to really lock it down, to make sure that, you know, the relationship doesn't go away. I can feel, like, you know, sand slipping through your fingers. So I think that reminding ourselves that, like, if a connection is good and solid and, you know, has the the early signs of being a healthy, secure relationship, it's not going to require, you know, 247 attention and intensity in order to kind of keep their flame burning.
[00:09:28]:
A secure relationship is likely to be much more sturdy and sustainable than that. And I think that, you know, that sense of intensity is usually a hallmark of an insecure relationship more so than a secure one. So as much as it will be uncomfortable, trusting that you can be a bit more, you know, hands off. It's not to say that you have to be, you know, feigning indifference towards this person or being really nonchalant and, you know, cool girl, no worries kind of thing. But certainly, like, trusting that you can do other things, and that it's actually, I would argue, more attractive, to be a person with a full life, who takes good care of themselves and has hobbies and does things on their own and has friendship groups, I think that that is much more attractive than someone who is, you know, willing to drop everything for someone they've just met, and be available 100% of the time and, you know, go with the flow. I don't have any preferences. I don't have anything in my schedule. I'm just here waiting, ready for you.
[00:10:43]:
I don't know that that's as attractive as, we might think it is. So I think that, you know, not losing yourself in a relationship when you have these patterns does require some deliberate, you know, departures from what might come naturally to you. So as I've said, not just dropping everything, continuing to spend time with other people. I think another piece is being really clear from the outside around, you know, what your needs are and what your boundaries are, not in a way where you have to, kind of, storm into a new relationship and, like, set out a charter of all of your needs and boundaries. I think, again, this is one of those areas where we can pendulum swing and go a bit overboard. But just not, I suppose, not, going into that people pleasing mode of suppressing everything in order to earn someone's affection, and then harboring resentment or finding yourself in the situation, you know, a month in, 3 months in, 6 months in, or more, where you've got all of these unmet needs and you've pretended to be fine with lots of things that you weren't actually fine with, and all of a sudden you're in a relationship that's really not making you happy, that feels really inauthentic. And, you know, that's largely of your own creation because you didn't advocate for yourself, and you weren't honest and vulnerable from the outset. So, I think that, you know, that's another version of losing yourself in a relationship, kind of shrinking, we could say, in order to not rock the boat, in order to keep the peace, in order to seem low maintenance and easy and likable, that can really come back to bite us.
[00:12:30]:
So allowing yourself to take up space, to have opinions, to have preferences, to the extent that, you know, those are authentic to you. Trust that the person that you're building a relationship with is gonna wanna know about those things and is going to, you know, want to invest in you enough to, kinda, meet you in the middle rather than feeling like you have to, you know, become very, very small in order to sustain a relationship because that tends not to end very well. So I hope that that's been helpful if you're someone who does tend to lose themselves in a new relationship. Recapping, I think the the key pieces of this are, don't drop everything in your life to make yourself completely available to this new person. You know, really make a concerted effort to continue doing things that make you feel like yourself, whether that's certain routines or hobbies or things that you like to do in your free time, friendships, family, work, all of the things that, you know, are the pillars of your life that, you know, existed prior to this new connection. Don't just abandon all of that because in abandoning all of that, you are kind of abandoning that which makes up yourself and your life. So it's no surprise that you then feel like you've lost yourself in a new relationship if your tendency is to drop all of those things, to orbit around this new person and the new connection. So make a really concerted effort to continue with all of that.
[00:14:04]:
Of course, you can make space for a new person. Of course, you can be excited about them. I'm not trying to steal the joy of the honeymoon period at all, but it can coexist alongside in continuing with those healthy habits. We don't have to, go to the extreme levels of it being 1 or the other. And the second key piece is, you know, make sure that you don't kind of shrink yourself in terms of your needs, your boundaries, your preferences, your values in order to, you know, earn someone's approval or sustain a connection, because doing so is really, you know, it's founded on kind of a mask on inauthenticity. And if that's the basis upon which the relationship is built, then it's not the right relationship. It's, kind of, built on a lie. And, you know, it's a really surefire way to lose yourself in a relationship is to allow that relationship to be built based on a version of you that is not true, and that will leave you feeling very lonely and resentful, and unfulfilled.
[00:15:17]:
So okay. So hope that's been helpful. Thank you so much for joining me, and I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thanks, guys.
[00:15:26]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna go deeper on all things attachment, love, and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
attachment patterns, new relationship, anxious attachment, relationship advice, maintaining self, healthy relationships, listener question, personal growth, self-care, boundaries in relationships, emotional health, relationship coach, nurturing connections, self-worth, relationship pacing, insecurity, dopamine effects, excitement in relationships, relationship intensity, vulnerability, personal development, master classes, relationship courses, self-discovery, maintaining friendships, behaviors in relationships, setting boundaries, codependency, relationship dynamics, personal fulfillment