Making Room for ME in Relationships: Why Spending Time Alone Makes You A BETTER Partner + FREE My Personal Compass Worksheet
Movies, romance novels, and social media can make us think that if we’re in a romantic relationship, our goal is to spend as much time as possible with our significant other. We’re led to believe that if we truly love our partner, we should spend every waking minute with them and never be apart.
That’s why you might think that you should never need alone time—time just with yourself—when you’re in a relationship. And you might even feel guilty if you want some time to yourself every now and then.
But do you know what I always tell my clients when I’m helping them build strong, loving relationships?
Not only that there’s NOTHING wrong with spending time away from your partner. But also that spending time alone is GOOD for your relationship and actually makes you a BETTER partner.
I know that’s a bit counterintuitive.
That’s why in this post—my final one in my Making Room for Me in Relationships series—I’m going to be doing a deep dive on why spending time alone helps you build a healthier relationship with your partner.
Why Are We So Reluctant to Spend Time Alone?
Before I get into the benefits of having alone time when you’re in a relationship, I want to talk about why we’re often reluctant to spend time alone in the first place.
As I said above, part of the reason that we often don’t prioritize alone time is that it doesn’t fit our mental image of what we’re supposed to do (or want to do) when we’re in a healthy, loving relationship.
But this isn’t the only reason why we don’t spend as much time alone as we could.
We’re also reluctant to spend time alone because doing so is often stigmatized, especially in Western cultures. Specifically, in the West, we tend to see spending time alone as something that people do only if they don’t have friends or family to spend time with. Just think about how rare it is to see people eating alone at a restaurant or sitting alone in a movie theatre. And when we do see people do these kinds of things, we tend to assume that they must be lonely, and we might even feel sorry for them.
However, even if you don’t think it’s weird to spend time alone, you might still be hesitant to do it. Why? Because you might worry about what your partner will think if you tell them that you want to go for a walk alone or get away for the weekend just by yourself. You might be concerned that they’ll think that you aren’t committed to the relationship. Or you might worry that they’ll feel hurt that you’d rather do something without them instead of with them.
Here are 4 ways that spending time alone helps you be a better partner:
1. It Gives You Space To Get To Know Yourself
If you’re like most of my clients, you probably spend every day of every week running from one responsibility to the next. For example, you might jump out of bed in the morning, rush to get your kids ready for school, scramble to get to work on time, dash home after work to feed and chauffeur your kids to activities, and run around the house doing chores before finally going to bed.
When you’re spending all of your time taking care of other people, you don’t have much time for the most important person in your life: YOU. This doesn’t just mean that you have less time to take a relaxing bath or curl up on your couch with a good book. It also means that you miss out on time to really get to know yourself and understand who you really are deep down.
When you spend time alone, in comparison, you give yourself the space to get to know your true self. It’s by being just with yourself that you get to know what your goals are, what really interests you, and what you enjoy doing. After all, it’s when no one is around to judge, criticize, or constrain you that you’re able to explore different activities, hobbies, and passions and simply let your heart guide you.
Knowing who you really are is important because it allows you to live a life that aligns with your deepest needs and desires. It gives you the opportunity to meet your own needs, and it helps you understand what you need from a relationship to ensure that you can be true to who you are.
How does this make you a better partner?
Because when you know what you need and want, you’re in a better position to seek out the kind of partner and relationship that are right for you. And when you’re in a relationship that feels right and makes you fulfilled, you’re going to be in a better mental and emotional space to be a loving, supportive, and committed partner.
2. It Lets You Develop an Independent Sense of Self
When many of my clients first come to me, they believe that when you’re in a relationship, you and your partner are supposed to be like two peas in a pod. But the reality is that it’s normal and healthy to maintain a strong sense of sense and cultivate an independent identity even when you’re partnered up.
And trust me, I completely understand what it’s like to lose yourself in a relationship. I’ve been there and experienced many consequences of such choice.
Spending time alone helps you prevent this because it gives you the opportunity to pursue individual hobbies and interests. For example, maybe you really love spin classes but your partner doesn’t. Going to spin classes on your own gives you the chance to do something you enjoy while potentially meeting people who share the same interests. This helps you develop friendships and hobbies outside the relationship. And it allows you to appreciate who you are independent of your relationship with your partner.
Maintaining a healthy sense of self beyond your relationship is important because it allows you to avoid becoming enmeshed in your relationship. When you become enmeshed, the boundaries between you and your partner become blurred. Over time, this can lead you to feel resentful and unfulfilled in the relationship, which might reduce how motivated you are to invest in the relationship and in promoting your partner’s well-being.
In comparison, when you have the space to be your own independent self in the relationship, you’re able to continue being who you are and meeting your needs. This leaves you with more mental and emotional energy to support and love your partner.
3. It Improves Your Ability to Navigate Conflict
Spending time alone can also improve your ability to navigate conflict in your relationship and respond to your partner compassionately.
How?
When you have time to yourself, you get a chance to reflect on your relationship and specific situations that have been on your mind. This can give you the opportunity to gain the clarity you need to have a calm, level-headed conversation with your partner.
For example, let’s say that you’re angry because your partner forgot to do the laundry yet again. Having some time alone gives you the chance to reflect on how you think and feel when your partner forgets to do the laundry. It also allows you to consider why your partner keeps forgetting to do it (it probably isn’t intentional) and how to initiate a compassionate conversation with your partner about it.
Spending time alone can also help you navigate conflict effectively by improving your ability to regulate your emotions. Specifically, research shows that spending time alone can reduce the intensity of negative emotions, such as anger, frustration, and sadness. This can put you in a better headspace to have a productive and empathic conversation with your partner about something that has triggered you. In other words, it gives you the chance to process your emotions so that you can respond compassionately to your partner instead of reacting to and attacking them.
4. It Allows You to Be Comfortable on Your Own
Lastly, spending time alone helps you be a better partner because it allows you to get comfortable with being on your own.
Why is this important?
Because when you’re comfortable with being on your own, you’re in the relationship because you want to be, not because you need the relationship to feel validated or fulfilled.
Sometimes people seek out relationships because they’re lonely and feel that they “need” a partner to make them happy and make life worth living. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a relationship and wanting a companion to share your life with. But if you’re counting on your partner and relationship to fulfill all of your needs and make you happy, you’re setting yourself up for the exact opposite—to be unfulfilled and dissatisfied.
As I’ve mentioned before, you can’t look outside yourself—whether it’s to a partner, job, or material object—to make you happy or fulfill your needs. Because the only person who can do that is YOU!
If you’re relying on your partner to make you happy and give you everything you’re looking for in life, you’re going to end up feeling disappointed sooner or later. And if you feel disappointed in your partner and believe that they aren’t doing what they need to do to make you happy, you’re going to have a hard time contributing emotionally to building a healthy relationship.
In comparison, when you feel comfortable being on your own, you know that you have the power to create your own happiness and fulfill your own needs. Investing the time and energy to build a healthy relationship with your partner might be one way that you do this. And when you’re able to feel fulfilled and know that it’s within your power to do what you need to do to feel fulfilled, you’ll be able to be a more loving and committed partner in your relationship.
Spending time alone helps you feel comfortable with being on your own because it gives you the chance to realize that you can have fun, feel happy, and pursue your passions all on your own. Sure, it’s wonderful to have the support of your partner as you do this. But it’s within your power to create the love and joy that you want to experience within your life and your relationship.
Don’t Be Afraid to Spend Time Alone
Spending time alone might seem like the opposite of what you’re supposed to do when you’re in a relationship.
But the truth is that prioritizing and enjoying alone time on a regular basis actually makes you a BETTER partner. It helps you get to know yourself, cultivate a strong independent sense of self, navigate conflict in your relationship effectively, and approach your relationship from a place of fulfillment rather than lack.
Keep in mind that spending time alone doesn’t have to mean going on a weekend getaway by yourself or not seeing your partner for days at a time. Setting aside just 20 minutes to take a bath or an hour to do an online yoga video is enough to give you the space you need to check in with yourself.
You can experience the benefits of alone time by doing any activity that benefits you physically, psychologically, or spiritually. But sometimes, you might find it helpful to use your alone time to get to know yourself in a deeper way.
To guide you through this process, you can use a FREE worksheet that I’ve created for you called My Personal Compass.
This worksheet will help you uncover your interests, goals, and values so that you can keep being the amazing person you are while building a loving bond with your partner.
And if you haven’t done so already, follow me on my Facebook page Vera Velini – The Assertive Happiness Coach. That way, you’ll be among the first to hear about new blog posts, resources, and master classes.
See you again soon!
Vera
P.S. Still feeling a bit uneasy about prioritizing yourself when you have a partner to spend time with and take care of (and maybe kids too)? Check out the video I made on why putting yourself first is the OPPOSITE of being selfish.
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