Keeping Relationships When In A Relationship
Simply Oloni have a guest post from a male writer! Ezekiel The Poet, 25, shares his experience on friendships when in a relationship.
One thing I’ve thought a lot about recently is the relationships that people within relationships (I’ve been guilty of doing this also) sometimes neglect: the relationships you have with people OUTSIDE your romantic relationship. But, most importantly, how to sustain those vital bonds you’ve established with your friends and anyone else you consider close to you whilst growing with the person you are dating and enabling them to have opportunities to grow familiar with those people already present in your life.
It’s a difficult one to juggle. It seems easy, in theory. And, many would say, self-explanatory. You start dating someone, they will be around you and your friends naturally… however it doesn’t always happen that way. Nor so smoothly. And it is so easy to get wrapped up in your romantic relationship that you sideline giving your friends and your partner any avenues to gain access to each other and cultivate relationships of their own. And being this wrapped up in each other can sometimes prove dangerous and potentially harmful to the relationship you want to build with your romantic partner, especially if you are considering staying with them long-term.
The experiences I’ve had in the dating world have made me really cautious about having both my romantic relationship and my friendships with others become heavily interwoven. My first serious relationship, for instance, was one where I wanted absolutely everyone I knew to be friends with her because, at the time, if you were going to be around me, you had no choice but to be comfortable with being around her and I wanted her to feel like she had access to every single aspect of my life, particularly access to the people I thought truly mattered to me. It was nice because my friends became her friends and she adopted the same approach with me so her friends became my friends and vice versa. However, what I did not consider was: 1) How little privacy our relationship would have , 2) How little breathing space we would have away from each other should we need it and 3) The difference between tolerating your friend’s partner and genuinely bonding with them.
Now I’m not by any means saying that you should lock your partner up and never divulge anything about your romantic relationship to your friends or those closest to you BUT, over time, I have started to think that your romantic relationship is something you should treat as precious and as fine china: vulnerable to shattering should too many hands grab a hold and are let loose to handle.
It’s something that, in my current relationship, I have tried to adopt whilst also recognising that those relationships I brought into the romantic relationship are also crucial to the health of my relationship as a whole: she (and myself vice versa) should be able to have access to the people I consider close but not in a way that is forced, in a way that occurs organically so that the bonds that are fostered can be true bonds.
I admit it is not something that may happen as easily as this but in considering the health of this relationship it has made me really think deeply about the relationships that, essentially, “make” a relationship and certainly being enabled to have the opportunity to become connected with the people who matter most to your partner should be a priority, in my book, but not something that involves forcing connections. After all, your romantic relationship and your friendships are two separate arenas and, whilst they share interlinking doors, those doors need to be opened with ease so they stay open NOT forced open.
By Ezekiel The Poet
