How I Secure Alone Time In My Marriage
The year I turned 30, as a gift to myself, I broke my lease in Manhattan and moved back to Brooklyn. I’d left two years prior because of a breakup, and while the initial ease of finding my new apartment (it’d literally fallen into my lap), helped soften the blow of my breakup, I couldn’t deny how much I missed the borough that felt most like home.
I found a new spot — a large one bedroom on the parlor level of a brownstone in Clinton Hill— almost immediately. It had 11 foot ceilings, a non functioning but beautiful fireplace, and a separate, and by NYC standards, large kitchen.
In the mornings I’d make my coffee and watch the sun come up from the window opposite my stove. I’d then retreat to my bedroom, now onto my second cup, and dig into whatever book I was reading at the time. 20ish minutes later, I’d drop to the floor, light a candle, and meditate. I’d close my eyes just enough to leave a small crack, letting the flame of the candle distort itself across my vision.
—————
Generally when I entered a relationship, my routines went out the window. My routine became their routine. It wasn’t as if I was miserable. I was generally just waking and drinking coffee, chatting about life and our days, with someone I cared about. But it wasn’t by chance that I also read far fewer books when I was seeing someone. And that my practices, like meditation, that tethered me to myself — my desires, my hopes, my truths — fell by the wayside.
The worst of such losses happened when I was 32. I lost more than just a morning ritual — I lost friendships, my work progressed at a snail’s pace, my workout routine became his workout routine, my diet became his diet, my social life became his social life (which was largely non-existent). I can’t remember engaging in much, if anything, that was separate. As if he and the relationship were a whale, I felt like a tiny plankton, swallowed whole.
I remained single for two years after we broke up.
I can see now, I needed that time to claw my way back to myself.
————
I chat extensively with women who are afraid of losing themselves in a relationship. Namely, becoming so absorbed in the other person’s life and activities, that the distinct, rich life that was their own, disappears. And they don’t just lose themselves, they then become props and players, in their significant other’s life.
I’ve had to work diligently (and it’s still very much a work in progress) to decimate the original wiring that said: You are safest and most loved, not just when you put other’s needs before your own, but when you serve to make them happy.
In the past, as if they were fragile birds in need of mothering, I took previous partners under my wing, tending to their needs — whether than meant finessing their resumé to help them land a more fulfilling job or always being the one to tidy the apartment, and specifically their mess (my resentment building like a roaring fire).
———
When I met my now husband, part of the reason I fell for him, was because of his morning routine. He’d wake at 5 a.m., drink an Americano, read, walk his dog, and return home to practice his electric bass, all before 8:30 a.m.
As tends to happen in the excitement of new relationships, his morning routine got slightly off kilter in the wake of our new love. Mornings were more frequently spent lounging in bed, rather than tending to our individual hobbies.
The week after our wedding though, James said to me:
I think we need to reframe our morning routines.
My eyes lit up.
He was eager to get back to his early morning practicing, practicing his Spanish, and reading. He was eager to get back to the things that made him, him.
The second he said it I wished I’d been the one to do so. Not because I wanted to be right. But because I, too, had lost those respective parts of myself. I just hadn’t been present enough within myself to see it.
—————
Creating space to reconnect to the parts of my life that were solely mine weren’t a matter of logistics or planning. It was a matter of creating the capacity, within myself, to not exist solely for the other person. To not bury myself in their wants and needs, busying myself making their lives more seamless while my own life, my own purpose, withered. And in reality, a lot of that behavior was based entirely on assumption, and old, faulty wiring (i.e. I won’t be abandoned by my partner so long as I continue to abandon myself.) It was never something they directly asked me to do. Certainly not my husband.
—————
These days I generally spend the hours of 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. alone, during which time James is working upstairs and then off at the gym. I journal, I read, I dig into big picture stuff around I Think I Like You. I do it all from bed with a cup of coffee. Frankly, it’s “easier,” because he’s literally not at home.
At night I cook us dinner while listening to a podcast I’ve earmarked from the day. I chop vegetables, roast chicken and prepare something to round out our day before watching Scandal together.
Occassionally James will sweep through the kitchen and ask:
Do you want company or do you want to do your thing?
I will have to pause, like really, truly pause, and then ask myself: What do I want? Because if I don’t, I’ll immediately abandon whatever I’m doing and spew out what I think he wants to hear. Sometimes I do and he has to double back and say:
Are you sure?
On more than one occasion I’ve said: No, actually, I want to do my thing.
Some moments are easier than others. At night, when we finish watching whatever show we’re watching together and he’s eager to go back to watching his own TV shows, I have no qualms about making a b-line for bed and my book I relish the moments on the weekends when he’s like “I want to spend a few hours in the studio today, working on music stuff.”
I’m getting better and better at voicing the same in return.
If you liked this post, you might also like: