Keeping the I in We

I've always been a believer that a effective relationship can raise ones' life, nevertheless it is easy to drop off yourself when focusing mainly on the needs of your partner. As women we tend to be the nurturers, the supporting force behind our mates and as we begin to identify more and more with the wants and needs of our significant other, we may push our own wants and needs aside. Our preferences, our pleasures and the things we once loved may have been modified in our ability to please and pacify our loved one. We may have given up a part of ourselves, as a sacrifice to the alter of love, and we may feel that by doing so we are investing in our future, when in reality we are investing in our mate's future.
In relinquishing the very things that bring us joy, simply to placate the one we love, we are saying that our wants and needs are not as important as our mate's wants and needs. Once we have done this we are no longer living our lives for ourselves but for someone else. Love need not require the sacrifice of oneself for the love of another. When we give up our own identity and cling to the identity of another we lose ourselves in that person and we become defined by them. Eventually resentment seeps in and we may become martyrs reminding ourselves and our loved one what we gave up for them. If the relationship fails we find ourselves filled with regret and bitterness and may have difficulty recapturing the part of ourselves that we had so easily relinquished.
We can avoid these pitfalls if we remain true to ourselves in our relationships. We can accomplish this by letting our partner know that we want to share the things that give us pleasure and that our interests, hobbies etc. are an important part of our life that we want to share. If our partner is not interested in sharing these things we should respect that choice but explain that we are choosing to keep the things that we love in our life because they bring us pleasure. If our partner cannot accept this, that is an indication that he feels our needs are not as important as his and we may ultimately decide to give in just to keep the peace. If we do decide to let go of the things that bring us joy and if we are perfectly content living our life in the shadow of another, we should ask ourselves who will we be if we turn around one day and notice the shadows no longer there. We may not always be, but I is forever.