5 reasons why you need friends outside of your romantic relationship

Cebu City, Philippines—When you first start dating someone new, it’s hard to imagine feeling anything less than euphoric. 

You presumably think they can do no wrong and if you could spend every waking moment with them, you totally would. 

However, being in a relationship doesn’t mean you have to be co-dependent.  Healthy relationships should be about two individuals who decide to share their lives together and build a relationship from it. 

Friends and romantic relationships are important aspects in our life, but finding a balance—especially in the beginning—is tricky. 

Here are 5 reasons why you need friends outside of your romantic relationship:

Friendships help you build your personal identity 

According to Dr. Louis Primavera, Ph.D., a psychologist trained in behavior and rational emotive behavior, “Spending time with friends helps strengthen your identification as a couple and makes you feel more connected to the world.” 

Spending time apart allows you to work on your separate identities, give you an opportunity to do the things you love, and lets both of you feel like you have control over your lives.  

Insight

Friends help you realize your wrong doings in a relationship, even when you’re too stubborn to admit it. 

They can offer insight into both yourself as a person and the workings of your relationship. 

They’ll have – or should have,– your best interests at heart, and they will have seen you in different situations and romantic entanglements.

Friendships allow privacy

We all have complaints every now and then — and sometimes that gripe is about your partner. As long as your complaints are minor, there’s nothing wrong with them. But in order to get them off your chest, you need friends to vent out on. 

The advantage of being able to open up to someone without fearing everything you say will get back to your spouse or partner is consoling. Find a friend who is a sounding board who can offer guidance or simply someone who feels your pain and laughs with you.

Friends help you realize your passion

Getting a life outside your relationship means pursuing passions that aren’t dependent on having a partner and nurturing your own circle of friends who aren’t part of your couple activities. 

This gives you autonomy in a relationship and is appealing to both sexes. You’ll have more things to share with your partner when you’re together. And time apart fuels desire for each other. 

They can help you build connections 

Traditional reasons for building relationships continue to be important. Despite the changing times of technology, which allows us to engage in cyber conferences and webinars, networking and in-person conferences aren’t going anywhere. Many still depend on building personal relationships. Making more connections means gaining more advocates and extending your reach in what you’re passionate about.

Maintaining outside sources of intellectual and emotional engagement gives you fresh ideas and energy to bring back into the relationship. It gives you things to talk about and explore together, and it ensures you continue to develop as a person as well as a partner.

Relationships are exciting but we sometimes have a tendency to let them consume everything we do. 

The important thing about being in a relationship is to not depend on your partner too much. 

Just remember that the amount of time you invest in your friends should be just as important as the amount of time you invest in your boyfriend/girlfriend. 

Just by putting a single day of “alone time” in between every couple of days will give you some breathing time and let you miss each other. It’ll give you time to appreciate each other. /bmjo

TAGS: friends, relationships