Do you recognize these 14 signs?
We’ve all been there and most of us have realized too late…
Some relationships just end up totally consuming us.
You realize you’ve lost your identity and that everything in your life revolves around this one person.
It happens to the best of us, right?
The following is a list of signs you’re losing yourself in a relationship, many of which come from my own personal experience. If you spot them early enough, you may be able to make changes before it’s too late.
1. Your hobbies are disappearing.
According to Psychology Today, losing your interests is one of the early indicators that you’re losing yourself in a relationship.
You find that you give up your hobbies to spend more time with your partner, or your interest in doing other things fades.
It can happen without you realizing, until suddenly 2 months have passed since you went to the gym or met up with friends.
2. Your friendships start to fade.
This is one of the saddest parts of all-consuming relationships, but it’s also one of the most common.
We often get so wrapped up in our partner that everything else fades away.
It’s not that we don’t care about other people; it’s just that we care about this particular person more (or we think we do).
You realize that you’ve been canceling plans a lot recently, or haven’t made much effort to chat to friends and meet up.
3. You’ve stopped using the words ‘me’, ‘mine’, and ‘I’
It’s nice at first – you’ll notice that you can say “We’ll be there tonight” or “We love Prague.”
It’s great to be part of something special with someone you love and it’s easy to get stuck in this pattern.
The issue comes when you only ever talk about yourselves as an entity and you lose the words ‘me’, ‘mine’, and ‘I’.
You may notice that it becomes impossible to express how you feel about things – this is partly due to habit, but also because you’ve merged personalities, preferences, and goals.
4. You can’t remember the last time you were alone.
It’s so easy to get into the habit of spending all your ‘spare’ time with your partner.
And, at first, it can be lovely.
You get home from work and spend the evening together, enjoy breakfast the next day, and repeat the whole thing again.
Sure, living together or staying with each other for most of the week is sweet, but we all need some time on our own.
5. It’s hard to distinguish if you’re doing things for you, or for ‘us’
It’s easy to get wrapped up in being a couple and planning a future together, but what about the present?
You might realize that a lot of what you’re already doing is based around the two of you.
It might be difficult to work out what you like and what you want, and you may find it even trickier to figure out what actions follow these feelings.
6. Your opinions have merged and you’re not sure how many of them are yours anymore.
This can happen very naturally, but is also something we’d highlight as a potential red flag.
Becoming more similar is quite normal, but it’s important to retain your own identity in a relationship and not completely lose yourself.
If you’ve lost yourself, your opinions may have become so merged that you’re unsure of which are actually your own; the same goes with your feelings.
7. You find yourself feeling anxious a lot more often.
Anxiety is something most of us struggle with on some level, and being in a relationship that’s consumed you is a huge trigger for these kinds of emotions.
A lot of anxiety arises from feelings of guilt or uneasiness – anything that feels uncertain or ‘not quite right’ can really encourage these kinds of emotions.
From personal experience, knowing that you’re losing yourself to a relationship (which you do if you’re reading this, let’s be honest) is not a nice feeling. You know you’re doing something unhealthy and you start to feel a bit guilty that you’re actively continuing to let it happen.
This triggers fight-or-flight responses in your body which present as anxiety – panicky feelings, pounding heart, upset stomach… all the usual, fun things.
8. You’re not your own priority anymore.
We’ve all been there – you want to look good for your partner, but you forget to look after all the other aspects of yourself. According to Psych Central, self-care can really go out of the window when you’re in the middle of losing yourself to a relationship.
It’s really sad that we forget to prioritize ourselves, but it’s very easily done.
You spend so much time being around them or wanting to make them happy, you forget that you have individual wants and needs that only you can fulfill.
9. You’re trying too hard to control everything else.
This is essentially turning into a list of all the negative personality traits I adopted when I was losing myself in a relationship, but there we go.
Being a ‘control freak’ is something some of us just are, while others learn this behavior because it helps them feel better about their circumstances.
It makes sense – you’ve lost your identity in a relationship and you feel out of control and overwhelmed. You love them and want to stay with them, but you’re not feeling stable at all.
So, what do you do?
You try to control everything else in your life to remind yourself that you have some power and some say over what happens in your life.
10. Your identity feels lost or disappointing.
As mentioned above, it’s likely you’re not being ‘made happy’ by the person that society tells you should be doing that for you. It’s also quite likely that you’re no longer feeling very attractive or wanted, despite being in an all-consuming relationship.
It doesn’t really make any sense and yet it feels so accurate, right?
You’re almost too involved with each other, which is leaving no room for excitement or surprise.
Things often speed up when you’re losing yourself to a relationship, and you go from newly dating to old married couple who sleep in spare rooms in the blink of an eye.
11. You find yourself talking about your relationship constantly.
Ever been so into someone that you find yourself mentioning their name all the time?
It’s cute at first, but, at some point, it gets boring for those around you and it’s probably going to make you quite unhappy.
Take it from someone who used any excuse to talk about their boyfriend, it doesn’t end well and it suggests that there’s something going on under the surface that you’re not dealing with.
Some of us feel the need to talk about things that we’re unsure of or uncomfortable with because it feels safer and better to get it out and almost have a witness to it; if we keep things to ourselves, we panic and worry.
Me? I talked about my boyfriend all the time because I was worried that if I wasn’t always mentioning him, I’d have to sit with my own thoughts and feelings and admit to myself that I was very unhappy.
I didn’t want to do that so I just kept pretending to be so loved-up that I wanted to talk about him all the time.
Toward the end of the relationship, I found myself talking about him even more, hoping that someone would say what I couldn’t say to myself – “That doesn’t sound good, are you okay?” or, “Are you sure you’re happy because you keep talking about the same thing over and over again?”
12. It’s always you that’s willing to change.
It’s good to want to make positive changes to yourself, but neither of you should be expecting the other to revamp their entire personality or appearance.
You may find that you’re too willing to take on their feedback…
…they like blondes, so you happily bleach your brunette hair.
…they think ‘you could be a little healthier,’ so you sign up to a gym and slog your guts out 5 days a week.
…they think you should be spending less time with your single friends, so you delete them from your Instagram.
You see where we’re going with this?
13. You’re very aware of your differences, and you actively steer clear of highlighting them.
It may be that you don’t share your political opinions as you know your partner disagrees, or that you have to bite your tongue every time they make a racist or sexist ‘joke’ etc.
This is a tricky place to be and the fact that you go along with these things without commenting on them suggests that you’ve lost your true self in the relationship.
You won’t always agree with each other, but it’s a sign you’re losing your identity if you lose the ability to stick up for what you believe in and voice an opinion.
14. Your friends or family members have mentioned how much you’ve changed. Repeatedly.
This is a really sad sign that you’re losing yourself in a relationship, and it’s something to pay attention to. Those around you know you best, and they’ll be able to tell that something isn’t quite right.
Maybe you don’t spend time with them as much, or you fixate too much on a text from your partner when you’re actually at your parents’ house for a nice dinner.
Or maybe you’re a bit withdrawn when you’re not with your partner and you seem sad and nervous.
Finally…
It’s important to note that this list is neither exhaustive nor completely accurate or relevant to everyone.
It’s also key to remember that you might have lost yourself to a good relationship – this is in no way saying that people only lose their identity in toxic partnerships.
Things might be amazing between the two of you, but it’s your behavior and feelings that might indicate you’re too involved in it.
Hopefully, these tips will help guide you back to a healthy relationship that fulfills you both and makes you both feel safe, happy, and loved.
