My entire adult life, I have moved from relationship to relationship. I have been, without question, a serial monogamist.

As a teenager, I truly believed that being alone was one of the worst things that could happen to a person. That belief followed me into adulthood. I threw myself into relationships completely, becoming whatever my partner wanted or needed me to be. My own wants, needs, interests, and sometimes even pieces of my personality got aggressively pushed to the background.

I told myself that was love. I thought loving someone meant giving everything I had. I thought compromise meant bending until I barely recognized myself. I thought being a good partner meant making the other person happy, even when it came at my own expense. It created unhealthy dynamics. Not only for me, but for my kids and for the people I was with.

Eventually, resentment would creep in. I would become irritable, angry, argumentative. Sometimes, frankly, I could be a complete bitch. The worst part was that I didn’t even understand why I felt that way. I blamed circumstances. I blamed the relationship. Sometimes I blamed the person standing in front of me. Only recently have I begun to understand that a lot of that anger came from abandoning myself.

During my breakup and divorce from Jarrod, I swore I would never get married again. For a while, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to look for love again. I had convinced myself that maybe the kind of love I needed simply didn’t exist. But time passed. I tried dating apps. I met people. I talked to a few men, connected with some, and stayed in contact with a couple of them.

And eventually I realized something important. It wasn’t love that was the problem. It wasn’t even relationships. It was the way I disappeared inside them.

Recently, I had a short relationship with someone I met through dating. He was attentive, emotionally available, generous, patient, and kind. He did nothing wrong. In fact, by many measures, the relationship was going well. We were talking about a future together. And still, something inside me began screaming for space. I could feel myself slipping into an old pattern. I could feel the gravitational pull toward becoming part of a “we” before I had fully figured out who I was as an “I.”

For the first time, I listened to that feeling. I ended the relationship after only about a month. Was that selfish? Maybe. I know I hurt him, and I am deeply sorry for that. I would never pretend otherwise. But that experience forced me to confront something about myself that I had never given myself enough time, space, or freedom to discover:

Losing myself is what makes me miserable. Losing myself is what creates the resentment. Losing myself is what eventually turns love into obligation. And I don’t want to live that way anymore. Throwing myself into another person with everything I have is not proof that I love deeply. It is proof that I haven’t learned how to hold onto myself while loving someone else. That is what I am learning now.

Before I build another serious relationship, I want to know who I am when no one else is defining the shape of my life. And when I do love someone again, I don’t want to disappear. I want to keep my hobbies. My interests. My friendships. My family. My responsibilities. My independence. My solitude. My freedom. My weird little routines and the parts of my life that belong entirely to me. Love should not require me to dismantle the life I have built.

The person I eventually share my life with should complement the person I already am, not replace her. They should add something beautiful to my life without becoming the entire foundation of it. I don’t need someone to complete me. I need to stop treating myself as though I am incomplete.

Maybe none of this sounds revolutionary to someone who learned these lessons years ago. That’s okay. For me, it is a revolution. Because I have spent decades believing that loving someone meant giving them everything. Now, in my mid-40s, I am learning something far more radical:

I am allowed to belong to myself.

I am allowed to build a life that I love before inviting someone into it.

I am allowed to love deeply without disappearing.

And I am finally learning how to be a whole person without waiting for someone else to make me one.