I remember all the times that my now wife and I would go down to the lake or out to eat during college. We tried to spend time together at least 3 days per week, most of which involves having dinner at her parent’s house. Spending time together is fun, but it comes to an end as the sun goes down. The worst part for me during this dating phase in our relationship was taking her home afterward, just so that I could pick her up sometime the next day to spend time together again. This was our life during college before we got married. Separating yourself from your significant other for the night is not the easiest thing to do, or the most desirable, but plays a large role in the health of the relationship.
“Distance makes the heart grow fonder” is a common phrase that pertains to this subject. When we are seeking someone to date or marry in our lives, it can be difficult to be apart. After all, we enjoy the company of the other person and creating memories with them. Most of the time we have similar interests as our significant other and like to do the same things. I have found myself doing activities alone that I feel I should be doing with my wife because she enjoys them as well. I don’t really like leaving her out of activities that I think are fun for both of us. As an example, I don’t usually ride my bike or use my kayak without her (unless she can’t go due to her busy schedule) because I know she enjoys the activities.
If we are always reliant on someone or something, it can be hard to tell exactly how much we like or depend on it. As an example, imagine a person has a cellphone with them for calls, messages, and maps. They always have their phone with them. Now, what if this person was in a town they don’t recognize and their phone battery dies. Now what? They are left with figuring out how to get home by themselves without the help of other people. They have no way to call and ask for help or use map programs. What will they do?
In reality they would probably just find someone and ask them to use their phone or ask directions. But what if the phone is someone we are dating and they leave the relationship? What if they are gone for a week without seeing you? It can be hard to tell how much we rely on a significant other without having space apart from them, whatever the length of time. If the relationship were to end, can we still make our way through life effectively? In the example with a person and their phone, if they have never learned to make it in life without it (or lost touch with being single), they could be lost for a long time.
Dating can be a difficult time. For some there is a lot of heartbreak and turmoil. Others, like myself, were fortunate enough to date younger and stick with the same lady until marriage.
Learn the “paper maps” of your relationship. It is good to help each other in relationships. Not all of us have strengths in every aspect, and your significant other should complement those weaknesses. That being said, we should be able to navigate all aspects of our lives without our significant other while dating. If your partner is gone on a trip or is going to relax with their friends, don’t set yourself up for failure by being overly dependent. It is good to rely on them for some things, but not everything. I like to think of my weaknesses as being the “paper map.” It still works, but it is harder for me to navigate. Her strengths that compliment my weaknesses could be referred to as the “GPS” maps. I can still operate and navigate life without a GPS, but the GPS improves the situation.
Continue your life, and add them to it. Not all aspects of our lives can be continued when we start dating. For example, if a person was going on dates with different people and finds one they have decided to date, it’s probably not in their best interest to keep dating other people. This is just one activity, but there are others. It would be awkward if the person decided that they still wanted to drive around in the car how they used to when they were single. Maybe in order to do this they told their significant other that they would need to drive themselves because they want to drive alone all the time. Probably not super productive for relational growth.
Another change would be going from spending all of our time with our friends, then spending no time with them because we are dating someone. This change would involve spending all of our free time with our significant other. If we spend 100% of our time with someone, it can get quite annoying. I am just going to say it. We don’t need to spend all of our time with someone in order to show them we care about them. It is good to spend a healthy amount of time with your significant other, and a healthy amount of time with your friends or alone. If you are prospecting marriage with your significant other, it would be good to figure out how much time to spend with them. Should I spend more time with them than my friends? From my perspective, we should make a significant other an addition to our lives to improve. These relationships should not hinder us.
Drop her off at the end of the day. I am a big advocate for waiting until marriage to move in together and become physically active. Is it easy? NO. It might be one of the hardest things to do in a relationship in today’s society. We have a lot of cultural and societal influences that try to persuade us away from this idea. Everything from TV shows, to books, to music tries to influence us against the idea of waiting until marriage. The rate of divorce is higher among people who cohabitate before marriage. What are some influences in living together that could result in a high divorce rate? I’m not really sure if there is a definitive answer. It seems to me that it could be the result of too much dependency and too much time together for their people to know whether they should get married or not. They could be stuck in an “infatuation” phase and are not able to move out of it due to decreased separation from each other. Spending all of this time together does not allow them to find what they need in life, and what their partner will do when they are apart. When the day together is over, it’s beneficial to be separated. It’s good to live apart and really find what it is you enjoy or are looking for in a person.