How Not To Lose Yourself in Marriage

A marriage can be quite a difficult endeavor, especially for those individuals used to having extended freedom. Getting married certainly attaches some new ties between you and a lifestyle which requires more involvement and less free time. It’s hard to get carried away by your new role as wife or husband and get separated by the things you were used and attached to.

The phrase “getting lost in marriage” might sound bad enough, but it is accurate to describe what is happening with couples failing to delimit some clear barriers of freedom. Traditional roadmaps to having a perfect marriage can fail to bring in the foreground problems relying mostly on human nature. Signing a social contract with another person can be a heavy burden for some personality types which thrive on liberties and boundlessness. Getting lost in marriage can be just a bonus (in the negative term) for someone already lost in life. Failing to know your overall direction means that side roads can act as permanent distractions for you, draining your resources and making you lose time.

A marriage fails to keep a straight road when initial goals are not met. For example, failing to have kids can cast a dark shadow on a marriage’s chances of survival in the long term. Children often act as natural binding elements between individuals failing to share common elements of interest. Bringing new life in this world attaches the responsibility of looking after and caring for its future. Not having such a concern can create a vacuum of responsibility towards one another. Formulating a plan and expectations from both sides can give meaning to a marriage and attach solid coordinates for the road ahead.

The passing years can be seen as a weapon with two cutting sides. Time spent together can create a positive or negative type of routine, and shifting between the two can happen without early notice. We all know the iconic couple which lives together for decades, but the image receives a lot of make-up in order to impose itself as an achievable target. The temptation of modern life has made long term marriages quite rare and people are more willing to search for short term relationships. Superficiality has made us look for fast results and instant gratification. We are less eager to wait and allow time to do its normal job. Lack of patience is one of the biggest enemies of long lasting marriages. From this point of view, compromise and patience are some of the best way to keep your marriage o the right track.

Couple therapy can be a great tool for finding directions and for accessing solutions. Sometimes a point of view exterior to your relationship can include a larger horizon of possible outcomes. All people act as mirrors and having the courage to put your problematic marriage in as many as possible can inspire a way out of problems. Letting go of the fear of judgment is the first and hardest step towards seeking exterior help and towards finding your way back to happiness and satisfaction.

Taking time to do the things that bring you joy and personal satisfaction has a lot to do with not getting lost in a marriage. It is not unusual to request a regular allowance of alone time, and that should not be seen as a way of avoiding your responsibilities. Being married should never completely change you as person. Embracing radical changes often leaves individuals without the feeling of belonging to a place or time. Looking in the mirror and seeing a stranger looking back each morning can be indeed scary. Requesting fast changes from yourself and getting angry when you fail to meet them is another fast method of getting lost. As the distance between intention and realization gets bigger, personal disappointment can reflect itself in your marriage.

To conclude, avoiding getting lost in your marriage is a matter of sensing the danger and taking active measures against it. Waiting for things to fall in your help out of the blue will leave without defense and easy to get hurt. Remaining true to your core identity is the way towards balancing the responsibilities attached to a marriage and the changes required by it.