You are now part of a couple, but you are still an individual. You are not simply Joe’s wife, or Lynn’s Husband, you are still your own person with unique needs, desires, interests, talents, goals, causes, and friends. You don’t have to give up your identity when you get married, nor should you.
In a loving, secure marriage, there is still room to continue pursuing things you love or are passionate about. The more fulfilled you are as a person, the more you bring to the relationship, and the more fulfilling and gratifying the marriage will be for both spouses.
One of the contributors to serious mid life crises, affairs, and divorces, is a loss of personal identity. People don’t know who they are any more and they don’t want to be defined only by being married to another person. They want to be recognized for who they are deep inside, their knowledge, their passions, their abilities. They want to share themselves with the world, and not just with the person at home. They want to live their dreams and experience all that life has to offer.
Doing so can be difficult with the demands of marriage, caring for the home, career pressures, raising children, and the never ending daily grind. These other issues take up a great deal of time and effort, and marriage takes active effort to be satisfying, but you also have to make time for yourself. Don’t lose sight of your true self, just because you now share your life with another person, because the day will come when you begin to resent doing so, or begin to resent your husband or wife.
If you need to find yourself or find a change of scenery, make those changes within your marriage. Change your lifestyle to one that includes more time for you, for your pursuits, instead of leaving the marriage or looking outside it to have your needs met.