Think. Too. Much.

All of us sacrifice our 'limitless, sky-high idealistic dreams' when we decide to be in a relationship with someone else. This word is key: someone else. We are in relationship not with ourselves, but with our partners, family, friends, colleagues. That someone else is an entire world; a person with their own story, history, fears, needs, wants, hopes, likes, dislikes - ultimately, everyone else is different to us. Each person with their own agency and freedom.

Being in a long-term committed relationship entails putting two people together and hoping that their needs and wants currently align and will be compatible, forever. When we continue to actively choose to be with a person, we are also continuing to choose to forgo our 'rainbow, the sky is the limit' thinking. We are deciding that being with this person is more important than our unbridled wants and desires, more important than our fantasies and more important than the illusion that we can have it all and the sense of entitlement that we should have it all.

When we choose to love someone in a committed way (shared life, shared home, shared future - note: this is my definition of a committed romantic partnership), we are choosing to consider someone else's needs, wants and hopes as important as our own. The phrase that comes to mind is "What matters to you, matters to me."

The trick is: How do we balance conflicting needs, wants and expectations? How can we enter a shared space where both can be contented with, both individualities and agency retained along with a strong connection of togetherness? Borrowing from Esther Perel, how do we develop and sustain separateness and togetherness? Connected, but not too close that I feel like I'm being squashed, and I cannot breathe. Apart, but not too far that I feel disconnected, isolated and lonely.

We are not the same today as we were yesterday. What mattered to us in the past may not matter to us in the future. What we considered insignificant in the past may consume us in the future. There are countless factors that shape what issues matter to us in any particular point of time.

What is the meaning of ambivalence and what role does it play in our lives? How should ambivalent feelings and thoughts guide or influence the decisions we take? Do we assume that the existence of ambivalent feelings necessarily reflects indecision, a wrong decision, an absolute no or absolute yes? How much internal space do we have for the grey area, the liminal space, and should we give ambivalence more room than we are normally comfortable with?