“My problem is that I love him too much!”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s taking my love for granted because I’m always there. May be I should play hard to get”.

This mindset is based on the notion that if two people love each other, they should want to spend every breathing moment with each other. If one person does not desire that kind of “closeness” , then the other should make him or her experience what’s like to have “love” taken away.

What this mindset creates is a kind of pseudo-intimacy which opens the door to a clingy quality in the relationship, conscious or unconscious manipulation of one another, and can trigger defensive reactions.

If this remotely resembles something happening in your relationship, let me clear things for you. Your problem is not that “you love him or her too much” or that “you’re always there.” Your problem is that you are not honouring each other’s independence.

How important is some independence in a relationship?

Very important – and absolutely necessary!

For there to be a more meaningful togetherness (intimacy, security and closeness) in a relationship, each partner needs a clear definition of his or her own independence and breathing room to exercise that independence.
 
How much distance and closeness, independence and togetherness each individual and each couple needs varies from person to person and relationship to relationship.

Couples that arrive at a natural rhythm of independence and togetherness do so not through some manipulate game of give and withdraw, hot and cold, pull and push, love and reject.

Couples that arrive at a natural rhythm of independence and togetherness do so through continued learning, growing, negotiating, adapting and modifying behaviour to bring out the best in each other and for each other.

They spend just as much time thinking of how to get closer to the person they love as they spend planning on how to spend more quality time with him or her. But they do more than that. They also spend just as much time and effort inspiring and helping each other achieve a “you,” an “I,” and a “we”

The “we” is the relationship – an ongoing mutual commitment with its own identity. Something both partners regard as worthy of self -investment and is cherished throughout the duration of the partnership.

Because there is enough “you,” “I,” and “we”, both people are fulfilled when apart and with each other. Couples in these kinds of relationships usually have fewer relationship problems, and are more likely to stay lovingly connected.

In relationships where two people come together with no clear definition of individual identity and where there is no enough room to exercise a “you” and an “I”, the “we” never develops.

One partner will express the need for togetherness and the other will express the need for independence. Occasionally there can and will be brief moments of intense closeness but these tend to be more of an activity than a meeting of minds, hearts and souls (doing versus being interactions). The brief moments of intense closeness quite often are followed by periods of distancing as one (and sometimes both people) tries to reestablish a sense of individual independence.

The overpowering need for togetherness can feel like a burden to the person who needs independence. The overpowering need for independence on the other hand can feel like rejection for the person who needs togetherness. In some cases, if the two people stay together they develop “hostile-dependency” (resenting the other yet fearful of separation).

Your relationship doesn’t have to end because of failure to balance each other’s need for independence and need for togetherness. Balancing independence and togetherness is a skill that anyone can learn.

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