Privacy: Why its Important in Relationships
Privacy: Why it’s Important in Relationships
Privacy is a word that we all hear a lot, but nobody really pays much mind to. By definition, privacy is the state of being free from intrusion or disturbance in one’s private life or affairs. That is the general definition, but privacy really means something else entirely when you are talking about your personal privacy in a relationship.
You and your partner should talk about what things you both feel are private to you, and you should set boundaries. Some people get very bothered by anybody looking at their text messages, or when somebody, even their partner, reads over their shoulder. This doesn’t mean that your lover is hiding anything from you, it’s really just them showing you that they are an individual with thoughts, feelings, and along with that goes their right to personal privacy.
Two things that often go hand in hand with privacy are trust and honesty. You and your significant other should be completely honest and trust each other completely, and with this comes the respect of personal privacy. When you trust your spouse, you give them a part of you. You let them know that you trust them completely to be honest with you and you agree to be honest and trust them in return. When you trust your partner, you are giving them privacy. You give them this not because it is the law, or because you have to, but because you trust that they are not hiding anything from you.
Personal space is another thing that goes along with privacy. You and your partner should both be well aware of your feelings and intentions for each other, so there really should be no need to smother each other. You can each have your own hobbies and interests that you pursue, and while you can do these things together, you can do them apart as well.
When talking about privacy, you need to understand that it is completely unrealistic to be with somebody twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It is quite understandable to want to be with somebody all the time because you love him or her, but there are limits on exactly how much time “all the time” entails. When you have come to the realization that you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, it really is a truly amazing feeling. The desire to spend the rest of your life with somebody is something so special, and sometimes, because it is such an intense feeling of love, people tend to try and put themselves in every part of their lover’s life.
If you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, that is absolutely fantastic, but that does not mean that you have to share absolutely everything at all times. That is an absurd idea to think about, but many people make this assumption about people in long-term relationships. Being with somebody else doesn’t mean that you have to give up anything about who you are, or what makes you who you are as a person. You should never change for anybody else, and nobody should ever ask you to. Being in a relationship means that you and somebody have fallen in love, and you have come to the realization that you want to spend the rest of your lives together. Who you are is who your partner fell in love with, and in order to make sure that you don’t change into somebody who you are not, you need to utilize privacy in your relationship.
