If you’d asked me a year ago what I wanted in a boyfriend, I would’ve said that I wanted a best friend. Now that I have exactly that, I’m not so sure it’s an ideal scenario. Here’s why being so close with my partner isn’t as great as it sounds:
- We spend way too much time together. My boyfriend and I are both introverts but we never get any alone time because we’re always together. I never get tired of being with him but sometimes I just want to be on my own. It’s hard to live with your best friend and find any time to be by yourself because you always have things to do and talk about.
- I miss my female friends. As soon as my boyfriend and I met, we became inseparable. In previous relationships, my female friends remained a huge part of my life because I always found fulfillment in my friendships that my romantic relationships couldn’t provide. But my boyfriend and I spend so much time together that I never have the time to see my other friends and I miss them often.
- We don’t get out enough. When your partner is all you ever want, your social life dies a pretty fast death. Instead of going to parties or out to shows or social gatherings, my boyfriend and I prefer to stay home or go to a restaurant together. While I love pretty much every minute of our time together, I sometimes feel that we’re missing out on worthwhile experiences that we can only have as part of a larger group.
- I feel like I’m betraying him every time I talk to my other friends about our relationship. It’s totally normal to talk to your friends about your relationships but for some reason, whenever I try, I feel like it’s too intimate to discuss with anyone who isn’t my boyfriend. Because of this, most of my friends don’t know very much about our relationship except for what it appears to be from the outside.
- When we fight, I don’t have anyone to confide in. We don’t fight very often but when we do, I struggle with finding anyone to talk to about it. And because I don’t talk with my friends in depth about the relationship in the first place, they have no way of knowing how to respond when we’re going through a fight. I always end up keeping it to myself and waiting to vent to my boyfriend when we’ve both calmed down a little. It would be really nice to have an impartial person to talk to about it sometimes.
- We’ve become the couple that everyone hates. No, we don’t wear matching clothes, thank goodness, but we go everywhere together and finish each other’s sentences. While our mental telepathy is one of my favorite things about us, I know that if I was in the room with a couple like us, I might become physically ill.
- We have way too much talk about. You wouldn’t think that constant conversation would be a flaw in a relationship, but my boyfriend and I are always engaged in some kind of interesting topic and it’s really tiring. Sometimes I just want some space to breathe, or even talk to someone who has vastly different opinions than me.
- I worry about what will happen if we ever break up. Of course we both assume that we’ll end up together, but as a cautious person who always expects the worst, I can’t help but think about how empty my life will be if this relationship ever ends. To lose your best friend and serious partner at the same time seems impossible to bear.
- We don’t have independent lives. Apparently the healthiest couples are the ones that have independence, which means that my boyfriend and I are definitely not doing it right. We have so much in common that our lives are completely intertwined. We like the same shows, the same foods, the same hobbies. I’m worried that our lack of independence will come back to haunt us someday.
- We get along so well that we haven’t learned how to work through issues. My boyfriend and I rarely argue, and when we do have a big falling out, we won’t have any idea about how to handle it. Challenges within a relationship bring resilience, and my boyfriend and I have never faced a real challenge together. No relationship is smooth sailing all the time. In order to be a strong couple, we need to know how to face difficult times together.
