Two Day Magazine

Spending Time Alone in a Relationship

“Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.” Alice Koller, novelist

When you have grown accustomed to being one half of a couple, parts of your individual self have the tendency to disappear into the background.  Sure, you’re still you, but you may not always feel and act like YOU.  Okay, if I’m getting a little abstract here, I apologize.  But, the simple truth is, in almost all instances, when you are involved in a serious relationship, parts of the old you get sidelined. 

Spending time alone can help you to regain the elements of your life that make up the individual you.  Sometimes, we get to choose when to spend time alone, but sometimes solitude is imposed upon us, for instance, when your partner is on a business trip or out of town visiting friends.  Choosing when to spend time alone can be liberating, relaxing, and satisfying.  Being forced to spend time alone can feel frightening and disconcerting if you are no longer accustomed to being by yourself.  One friend of mine, a successful law student, admitted to going out every night after a recent breakup. 
She admits, “I just couldn’t be alone.” 

The extended social bender only ended when she got sick from partying and exhaustion.  Her story should be a lesson to us all, whether single or taken: do not fear solitude, embrace it.  If we fear being alone, then we may act in ways that are unhealthy and counterproductive to our own personal development. 

Learning how to spend time alone can help you to figure out what is really important to you. Instead of treating alone time like a burden, we all need to welcome it as an opportunity to do what we want.  The struggle lies in actually knowing what you want to do when you have time to yourself.  One way to achieve successful solitary time is to plan and prepare for your time alone.  Usually, the best time to plan your alone time is when you are experiencing a really hectic period in your life.  It always seems as though our best ideas are spawned when we have no time to implement them.  When you think of something that you would like to do by yourself, write a note in your day planner while you are at work. You can even write down or record “alone time” ideas when you are sitting in traffic. 

We plan for everything else in life –weddings, vacations, doctor appointments, why not create a schedule of ideas for personal days?  That way, when you are presented with a period of time that you will be spending alone, you will have a reserve of plans from which to choose.