Incentive
I understand a lot of the reasons why it’s not a good idea to be always spending time with your partner, but I think it’s something it’s kind of difficult to shake because I want to spend time with my friend, and since we share so much in common there’s not many reasons for me to not want to do that with them. I understand it’s healthier however to spend time with other people and have a richer life, but a lot of that feels like I was driven by punishment not necessarily driven by motivation. So what I decided was that I wanted to figure out a positive reason for spending time apart, and enriching my life. I’m the kind of idiot who really likes studies, and so I was watching a video on love and some studies on that. One of the things I took away was a lot of love is based on rate of intimacy changes. It’s important to keep growing that intimacy, especially during the first stages of the relationship. I think there’s something to do with a limit of how much intimacy you expect and how you want to have that career be something a little bit more gradual rather than an instant burst and then a sharp stop. But I think intimacy comes from learning new information about someone, and it’s really hard to do that if you do not have new information. If I spend all of my time with my partner, then I don’t have much individual growth and it’s a growth as a group instead. While there’s a place for that, it’s arguably more important to have individual growth. I know this is a weaker reason than the argument against codependency, which is the fact that you cannot fully rely on one person for your needs. But I think this is at least a positive instance of reasoning for being OK not spending all of your time with your partner.
I think it would be best if E was not a huge portion of my life, but rather something that accents it. I think it would be good for me to still have some surprises, some stories or experiences that she does not directly share or know about, not for nefarious reasons but rather for almost a sense of mystery and having something more than what she currently knows. This way I have something that I can share with her in the future, rather than suddenly hitting the brakes on learning so much about someone.