Relationships is all about sharing and developing an eternal closeness. Sharing your intimate things, opening your heart and being completely transparent with your partner is in my view, the most profound type of sharing. This kind of deep sharing can be a boosting support for the future of a relationship.

But do we tend to get too dependent on our partners while sharing too much?

A healthy relation is like a balancing act on a rope. You bend too much towards one direction and you would topple. The right balance in a relationship involves both autonomy and connection. While it is very important for oneself to maintain their identity, values and goals, it is also important for you and your partner to share everything and become a “we”. If you lean too much towards self-rule, you will end up losing intimacy. On the other hand, if you continually sacrifice things that are most important for you, you will lose your identity.

Can high intimacy lead to too much of dependency?

Intimacy is an emotional and physical closeness that you share with your partner. Intimacy is not something that you can measure. Its depth keeps varying depending upon situations. One moment you many feel very intimate with your partner and other times you might feel very independent. But if your relation is perfect, intimacy and independence go hand in hand. Intimacy should never subsume your individuality, in fact it should work towards enhancing it.

But when you become unable to take even the simplest decisions without your partner, the intimacy takes shape of an unhealthy dependency which can even lead to frustrations and anger down the road. In such situations, without the partner, one can end up feeling helpless and incompetent.

Depending on someone for love, care and support is normal. But when this dependence comes onto your own identity, then it’s time to stop and think. “I” and “We” need to exist together in harmony for a relation to succeed. When you learn the fact that you can depend on your partner in times of need, but it is important to use your own self, then the level of intimacy is deepened, and the bonding in a relation is also strengthened.

There can be times when intimacy takes form of dependency, especially when you are trying to cope up with difficult times. You rely on your partner as a life jacket and expect him/her to protect you from sinking. For e.g., if there is a sudden death in your family and you are unable to cope up with the shock, you depend on your partner to pull you through tough times and stay by your side all the time. You even depend on your partner to remind you to eat and sleep, as you might not be able to think about basic tasks in such an emotional mental state. Depending upon your partners in times of stress is a measure of deep trust and not an unhealthy dependency.

But sometimes it gets tough to know if you are too dependent or not. Just stop for a moment, and think

• Whether you have given up your individual choices in order to please your partner?
• Do you find yourself unable to make any decisions without your partner?
• Do you feel the need to know everything about your partner in order to feel secure?
• Do you feel left out when you partner does something alone?

If you answered to all or most of the questions, then you can know for yourself what it means…