It’s easy to get lost in a relationship. As women, we do most of the heavy lifting in the emotional part of our relationships. Because of that, we tend to get tunnel vision and all of our attention on the relationship we have with our man, often forgetting about the relationship we have with ourselves. Remember that friend you had in high school who disappeared from your life whenever she had a boyfriend? Don’t be her.
Of course, our husbands and our children are the most important people in our lives, that’s a given. And we are happy to meet their needs. But when you fail to spend time doing things on your own and meet your own needs, be it dinner with your sibling, coffee with your best friend, or kick boxing with a group of people from work, you lose your sense of self.
It’s cute and kitschy to say you haven’t listened to anything but The Wiggles in four years and you don’t have time to do your hair because you’d rather know your husband has an endless supply of clean socks. It’s not cute or kitschy for those things to be true.
Here’s why, Bombshells. When you stop doing the things you like, when you don’t read books anymore, or go dancing with your girlfriends, or get out on the trails with your mountain bike on a crisp fall morning, you become a shell of the person you once were. Let it go long enough and one day someone will ask your opinion on something and you won’t know, because you haven’t touched base with the YOU inside for so long, you’ve forgotten what you like and you don’t like about everything, about anything.
Being a shell of a person is a terribly unfortunate predicament, especially if you’re one half of a partnership called marriage. Would you like to have a conversation with someone who had no sense of self? No, you wouldn’t. And your man doesn’t either.
To give yourself freedom to be you, to move in your skin, not as someone’s significant other or someone’s mom, but as the amazing person you were before all you were those things, is the most amazing gift. It’s a gift to you, to your man, and to your kids. Because when you’re fulfilled, when you’ve enjoyed the perks of being you, you have a whole person to offer your husband and your kids again.
Take the opportunity to have a full life. Find happiness from within by spreading your wings again. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much more you like everyone and everything around you, including yourself.
“The Bombshell Mommy” is written by Abigail Blank, romance author and mother of three. Frozen Heart and its sequel, Melted Tears, are published under her pen name: Annabelle Blume. Got a question about how to juggle it all and still be a Bombshell? Email Abigail at thebombshellmommy@gmail.com, connect with her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter @Bombshell_Mommy and look for her on Pinterest.