The 'C' Word

Being part of a couple means compromise. But compromise and change are one and the same thing; as you are compromising you are also changing. You can’t help it.

At the start of any relationship you are just you. Your habits, your personality, your beliefs, what you like, what you don’t like, are all genetic, organic, nature, nurture whatever you want to call it, they are all a result of you and only you.

Then you meet someone. At first you are still yourself, and maybe that’s what makes it so interesting, two people meeting and exchanging new and exciting ideas, maybe that’s what creates the spark. But then you begin to share your life with them and you begin to pick up parts of each other; a different point of view here, a new way of doing something there. Your experiences are shared, your vision becomes one and the same. And then, before you know it, you are no longer you. You are a version of you that only exists as one half of this particular couple.

They say that people who have been together for a long time begin to look like each other. I’m not sure I believe that. But there is no denying that people who have been together for a years are apt to finish each others sentences, and share an outlook on life, much like they share a tube of toothpaste or a duvet.

It’s not a bad thing. In order for people to coexist happily, changes are necessary.  It starts with telling your new guy to put the loo seat down, or listening to an album by an artist you had no desire to listen to before, seeing something from a different point of view. Then fast forward a few years and you are creating a home together, putting that ceramic cat away that you thought was so cute but the new love of your life gags at the notion of, eating food that you both like, going places of mutual interest, and your life becomes one. And it involves a huge element of compromise.

But what happens when a relationship ends? At first it’s like a little holiday. Suddenly you can eat food you never bothered to cook before because your ex didn’t like, stay up all night with the bedside light on reading, or wear those god awful trainers she hated. Because, for the first time in a long time, what you do won’t bother anyone. It’s like being able to breathe again. All those things that you were compromising on, suddenly there is no compromise, and it is liberating.

Then as time passes and the ceramic cat comes out of the loft, you begin to see glimpses of the old you. It’s someone you recognise but can’t quite put your finger on. And suddenly there’s a moment… hang on, I know you! You’re the person I used to be.

There’s nothing wrong with changing for someone. Indeed, it’s not something even the most confident, self sufficient person can avoid. And nor should we. The change happens gradually, without consciousness or reason, logic or thought, and it’s natural. But it’s only when you spend time alone that you begin to see yourself for who you really are.

I never really understood the “finding yourself” thing. What were they on about? I don’t need to find myself. I’m right here. But sometimes we give so much of ourselves to others, whether as part of a relationship, a job, becoming a parent; that we begin to lose ourselves into the bargain. And it’s when we realise we are lost that we need to go looking for ourselves.

But old habits die hard, and it takes a long time to peel back the layers of the person you had become as part of a couple and regain control of who you were before, who you are as a whole of one person.

The sad thing is that people fall in love when they are organically themselves. And it’s that person that someone loves and wants to be with. The couples that make it work are the ones who become versions of themselves that are still attractive to one another. The change is good. And the change is romantic. It is the ones who have changed a little too much, or in the wrong way, that find themselves alone or in an unhappy relationship.

Maybe love isn’t about compromise at all. Maybe it’s about finding someone who doesn’t change you. Or for whom the change is attractive and all the more loveable. And if you feel like yourself, really yourself with someone, that is true love. And when you feel like you are lost, you know it’s time to leave. But it takes time to see how much someone will change you, and how far you will need to bend in the breeze of a relationship, and sometimes that takes years, a lifetime even. And that makes it all the more scary and difficult to go looking for yourself, but all the more refreshing when you truly find yourself again.