7 Ways To Understand Your Partner’s Need For Time Alone
Hearing that your partner wants more alone time can sound like they want to break up with you, but that’s rarely ever the case. You need to learn more about their need and why alone time is so important to them.
Your life shouldn’t revolve around your relationship anyway, even if you are the type of person who needs less alone time than others. Here’s how to cope with your partner’s need to be alone, and start to enjoy your own company a bit more.
1. Trust them if they reassure you of their feelings for you.
If your partner has clearly said that their need for alone time isn’t a threat to your relationship, don’t assume that it is. According to Very Well Mind, needing space in a relationship doesn’t have to ring alarm bells. Just because someone doesn’t want to spend all their free time with you anymore, doesn’t mean that they care any less about you than when they did.
Unless there are other signs that indicate a problem in your relationship, don’t assume the worst just because they ask for some time by themselves.
Maybe you still want to spend every waking hour with them, but you need to realize that doing so could easily damage your relationship. People can start feeling suffocated or get bored with each other when they spend too much time together.
2. Understand the importance of alone time in a relationship.
People need to feel like they have room to breathe and do their own thing in a relationship. Your lives shouldn’t revolve around each other, even if you are madly in love. According to Psychology Today, alone time makes relationships healthier.
So, realize that more time apart will probably benefit your relationship – if you allow it to.
The time you do spend together will be better quality in terms of your engagement and enjoyment. You’ll become more accepting of each other’s flaws and the little things you find annoying in each other because they won’t be staring you in the face all day. And the experiences you have apart will give you something to talk about.
What’s more, your relationship will move forward at a steady pace, with less risk of it burning out and fading before it’s even got going.
3. Consider whether you have been spending too much time together.
The reason your partner is asking you for more alone time is probably that you’ve been spending most of your free time together so far. This is normal when people fall in love, but it’s not really sustainable.
You both have things you need to get back to, and you shouldn’t drop everything just to spend every minute together. Maybe you have been asking your partner for more of their time than they are prepared to give you.
Give them some room to breathe and do their own thing instead of acting needy and demanding of all their time. In reality, not having separate lives is more of a threat to your relationship than your partner’s need for time to themselves.
4. Consider whether you’re okay with being alone in general.
Maybe your partner’s need for alone time bothers you because you’re not okay with being alone yourself. Learning how to be okay with being alone is going to help you in more ways than one, and it will help your relationship or any other relationships you might form in the future.
Learn to be more independent and enjoy your own company. With practice and dedication, it’s that hard to achieve. And when you like your own company more, others will enjoy your company more too.
While your partner should make you happy, your happiness shouldn’t depend on them. You should be okay with being alone. You should be able to create your own moments of joy.
5. Find things to do to fill your time.
Maybe you don’t like your partner’s request to spend time away from you because you don’t know what to do with yourself. Is there a hobby you’ve been neglecting or a new one that you could try? How about just spending the day in bed, taking a long walk, or a relaxing shower?
There are plenty of things you could do, so think of the ones that you’d enjoy doing and do them. The worst thing that you could do is to just wait for your partner to come back, call you, or text you.
If you have a fulfilling private life, it will reflect positively on all other aspects of your life, including your love life and your social life.
6. Respect your partner’s need for alone time.
Ultimately, when your partner asks you for some alone time, you have to let them have what they need. Respect their need and don’t turn it into a fight.
Even if you don’t understand it, you have no choice but to respect it if you want to make your relationship work. So, don’t nag your partner into spending more time with you and give them reasonable scope to be by themselves.
Of course, it’s something you’ll want to discuss with them. Their wish to be alone sometimes should be balanced against your wish to spend time with them. You should both feel like you get enough of what you need.
You shouldn’t feel needy when asking to spend time with them. It’s more a case of gaining the right perspective in terms of wanting to be together, but respecting them when they want to be apart for a while.
7. Enjoy alone time as well as spending time with your partner.
In the end, you should learn to enjoy the time you get to yourself just like you enjoy spending time with your partner. Once you find pleasure in being alone and doing your own thing, you’ll even enjoy the time with your partner more. According to Psychology Today, it will also make you more compassionate towards yourself, and your partner. You’ll feel happier in general, both separately and when you’re together.
Learn to love yourself, enjoy your own company and make yourself happy. Again, it can only benefit any relationships you already have or will have in the future.
The truth is, even if your partner asks for alone time because they’re unsure about the relationship, your best shot is to let them have it. Pressuring someone into spending time with you rarely results in anything good, whatever your situation may be.
So, even if you don’t like it, give your partner their me-time and learn to be okay in your own company too.
