When you lose your identity in a relationship

Love can make us do great things and love can make us do harmful things. One of the commonly witnessed phenomena is one of the partners trying to change completely just to keep their partner happy and in the process losing their identity.

Effect? You lose connection with yourself. How can a person who is not connected with self can achieve a genuine connection with anyone else? The connection with the partner is buried under the pressure of keeping them happy. The very relationship for which you were giving up yourself is the worst sufferer. 

1. People get attracted towards each other for certain reasons. The reasons are always based on how we are different from others. When we lose our uniqueness our partners often start losing interest in us. They cannot understand why it is happening because subconsciously they believe they have made you change for good, but they do lose interest.
2. When we are constantly wanting to please our partner and ready to go to any extent to please them, we stop respecting and loving ourselves.
3. We lose confidence in ourselves and do not believe that there is anything good about us. That is when we become insecure about the relationship and become clingy and irritable. Clinginess is the enemy of love. It puts people off much faster than anything else.

What we need to understand is that true love does not demand anything, least of all to change ourselves. True love is about accepting the other person as they are and loving them for it. So when our partner starts constantly criticizing everything about us all the time, suggesting or even forcing us to change our ways, it is a warning sign that love is already lost and now it is more about power games and control.

Your partner can be aggressive about you changing everything about yourself or can be a subtle controller where he/ she keeps pushing you to change and compromise under the guise of love.

But love does not demand. They can suggest. Partners in love can always suggest what they think can be good for their partner, but it has to be left up to them if they want to change or not. If your partner threatens to break up over your resistance to change or to get you to do what they want then it is a clear warning sign of a doomed relationship.

That is why before getting into a relationship or whenever we get some awareness we need to spend time to understand ourselves- good and bad both. If we are aware about ourselves we will be aware if our partner is unnecessarily trying to change things like our friendships, our hobbies, our relationships with our parents and family, our choice of career or even the way we dress and speak.

Be open if a genuine partner has a genuine suggestion. Being rigid doesn’t help. But be smart enough to know the difference between a genuine partner and a control freak.

The first step is to have an open communication with your partner about what you perceive and experience, A genuine partner would be open and accepting and even work on themselves. 

But remember it is okay to walk away when still not married, even if you are formally engaged, if you can see the signs because things become very messy once you are married.

If you believe this can help someone, do share. To connect with Dr. Sapna Sharma for Relationship Counseling WhatsApp on 8446229088 from wherever you are in the world.