Not getting lost

I was chatting with my daughter yesterday about how things are going with her new boyfriend who I very much like. I don't pry and she shares only what she wants to but i can see she is getting to a stage of assessing how to balance her need for quiet time versus the social demands of being in a couple.

This is not an easy line to walk and knowing how not to get lost inside of a pairing is not remotely obvious. Our partner does not provide our happiness but instead companionship which can be fruitful but also potentially stifle our identity if we are not clued in on the signs.

Those of us who grew up under the old atomic model of the family questioned ourselves less and simply entered the dating arena with plans to join a pre-existing model. Whether it would ultimately work out for us wasn't as well considered as what the impacts of rejecting it would have on our social acceptability.

Only time would tell.