Space and Time...

SPACE AND TIME

Happily ever after… This is where the story ends, the curtain comes down, the screen flickers and the credits roll. But where the fairytale ends, life begins.

But seriously how happy is ‘happily ever after’? How real is the reel life that glorifies love? So you’ve found your prince charming, or won the lovely maiden. But continuing to live happily after the fairy tale ends is another story. And unless we pay attention to our relationship, we’ll realize that there’s a thin line that prevents a happy fairy tale from becoming tragic.

When we are in the middle of any sort of relationship crisis, the very last thing we want to do is to let go. Conflict with someone we love often makes us want to do the very opposite. When we’re feeling threatened by the loss of that person, we act from a place of fear. Our stress hormones skyrocket as we react with our instinct. Suddenly we hold tighter, do more and think of nothing else but them.

Love is a strange emotion.

Relationships can be confusing.

There are certain phrases that chill the marrow when you hear them in the context of a relationship.

“Where do you see this going?”

“Are we still happy?”

“I am getting suffocated.”

And the great grand-daddy of them all, “We need to talk”, of course. But few phrases ring in our ears like a banshee’s wail foretelling the death of a relationship like “I need some space and time.” We hear that phrase and translate it as “I’m working up the guts to dump your sorry ass.”

Except… that’s not the case. In fact, it highlights one of the most common misconceptions about relationships. One of the things that people (myself included) often don’t understand about relationships is that everybody needs their space at one point or another. We have a tendency to treat relationships like The Defiant Ones which means once we’ve agreed to be in a relationship now we are shackled together for all time, never to be alone again and the only thing we can do is be dependent on our partner.

It seems we are no longer an individual because we are now officially, a couple – a gestalt entity forming feet and legs, arms and body that somehow still has a hard time agreeing on whether to watch a TV series or a movie, never mind which of you forms the head. This is especially true when we are in a new relationship – spending every waking moment together is seen as proof of just how much you love one another and why you are both so perfect together.

But that is not how people work. We must not subsume our identity into our unions. Exchanging our sense of self for a cutesy portmanteau couple name that even PBB Teens would gag over. Just because you love somebody doesn’t mean that your need for time to yourself go away, and wanting time to do your own thing by yourself and with your friends mean that your love is any less “real”.            

Space and time if done rightfully can actually help you realize what you want to gain. It will provide you with a realization that each of you can grow together but may also grow as separate individuals. Valuing your relationships means you respect and trust each other enough to give both space and time to do your own thing so both of you could realize the value of time apart and time of togetherness.

Now – I say, the credits can finally roll.