Time Apart From Significant Others

A couple of weeks ago, my friend posted on Facebook that people need to spend time away from their significant others, possibly vacationing apart and definitely not working together all of the time. His comment followed an intensive year of him living, working and generally spending all of his time with his partner.

His comment wasn’t new and I have heard others say similar things. What was serendipitous was that Heather had just left for an 18 day vacation.

What I have taken out of the time apart:

I still carry some of my concerns from the past. I’m not certain that this will always be the case though. The concerns manifested themselves in slightly different ways than before and I can see them for what they are. Which is something that doesn’t happen so often when we are together because I’m in a different head space.

From time to time, it can require effort to remember why we are attracted to each other. But this effort is worth putting in because it’s important to remember the reason for your attraction, given the tendency for humans to stop noticing the familiar. Thoughts and emotions are not self sustaining so generating the positivity is critical for keeping it going.

We’ve come a long way and there is a long way to go. Personal growth is similar to relationship growth in that it is always a possibility. Each new thing you learn, alters who you are and who they are. The evolving nature of relationships should be viewed as fun, something with a beginning and a middle, but no end.

Communication is critical to happiness within a relationship. Heather and I are aligned in many areas, but there are some aspects of our personalities that fall outside of the others awareness. Sharing these with an open mind is paramount to cultivating a strong connection. Neither one of us is wrong for what we believe, how we think or the actions we take. Talking about these things removes any road blocks from our future and enhances our understanding and respect of the other.

I have a number of areas of personal development to work on. This pleases me because it would be dreadful to believe that I didn’t. Heather does a lot of learning when she’s away, so when we talk on the phone, there is always a lot of new stuff to cover and hundreds of new ideas. When she gets home, we talk about these things and they alter my understanding of the world, myself and our relationship. Her return is exciting, not just because we get to reconnect, but because we get to recreate.