The walls are closing in and the air feels thick. Your heartbegins to beat faster, and your body instinctively switches toflight mode. You're not even moving, but the sweat is dripping downyour forehead.
No, you're not experiencing a panic attack. You're beingsuffocated by your relationship.
Relationships are delicate creatures. Just like holding a birdtoo tightly will crush it, clinging to a relationship too tightlywill do the same. You both need some room to fly.
This is a much talked about but rarely practiced preaching.Almost everyone would agree that being too dependent on yoursweetie is a bad thing, but that doesn't stop many people fromtreating their significant other like they possess the key toeternal life and happiness.
Kahlil Gibran, a very wise poet, once said, "Let there be spacesin your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dancebetween you."
Very simply, don't suffocate each other. When someone asks forspace, it could mean you haven't been giving any.
Ask yourself the following: Do you call several times a day justto check on your sweetie? Do you want to see them every day? Do youinsist on knowing what they are doing at all hours?
If you answered yes, you're not only suffocating your honey,you're suffocating everyone in his or her life.
If after two weeks of dating, your "other" refers to you as "theold ball and chain," you are not only suffocating them, you haveactually chained them to a heavy iron ball and are attempting todrown them in the Mississippi.
If, on the third date, you skip the wedding fantasies altogetherand insist the kids take your last name, seek medical help.
If you ran right out and purchased him or her an electronicleash, er, cell phone, set only to receive your calls, Stephen Kingneeds to interview you for his next book.
Those are the extreme cases, but you get the idea.
A relationship in which either or both parties feel as if theycan't live without the other is not true love, it's co-dependency.Anyone in freshman psych can tell you that.
Try to remember the reason you wanted to be with your sweetie inthe first place and the reason they wanted to be with you.
You fall in love with people for who they are as individuals,but some people make the mistake of trying to take away thatindividuality.
Succeeding at this partial lobotomy guarantees a relationshipbut not with the same person. If you have to make seriousadjustments to be with someone, the person is not worth it.
As always, I welcome your comments, questions and suggestions.E-mail me at tnamore@yahoo.com.
