For the Love of Facts
For the Love of Facts is a podcast where two therapists, Dr. Zamzam Dini and Dr. Kadija Mussa, unpack the truths behind love, relationships, and healing. In a world full of noise and myths, we bring culturally grounded, evidence-based conversations that center faith, connection, and care. No fluff—just facts.
For the Love of Facts
Me & We: Maintaining Your Identity While Building a Strong Relationship
Have you ever felt yourself disappearing into a relationship, or conversely, kept such rigid independence that true intimacy felt threatening? That delicate balance between maintaining your individuality while building a meaningful connection with another person represents one of the most profound challenges in relationships.
Our discussion explores the concept of differentiation – the ability to maintain your authentic self while staying emotionally connected to a partner. We unpack what healthy differentiation looks like: expressing needs without guilt, navigating conflicts without shutting down, and pursuing personal interests without feeling like you're threatening the relationship. Conversely, we examine the warning signs of poor differentiation, like abandoning hobbies and friends in the name of togetherness or avoiding vulnerability to protect independence.
Cultural expectations often complicate this balance, particularly for women and mothers who face societal pressure to sacrifice individuality for relationships and family. We challenge the false dichotomy between "selfish" and "selfless," exploring how proper self-care actually strengthens relationship health. As one of us puts it, "You have your own battery as an individual, and then a larger battery that's connected to both partners. You can't charge the couple battery if your individual battery is depleted."
Building better differentiation requires intentional work: developing self-awareness about core values, communicating needs early rather than expecting mind-reading, maintaining personal passions, and creating dedicated couple time. The goal isn't choosing between individuality and togetherness – it's skillfully integrating both. Even those from collectivist backgrounds who deeply value interconnectedness need sustainable ways to honor themselves alongside their commitments to others.
We challenge you to reflect on your own relationships: What's one way you can invest in yourself this week, and one way you can invest in your "we"? Your relationship deserves both.
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One Ever been so wrapped up in a relationship that you stopped doing things you loved, only to feel a little lost, or, the opposite, kept your independence so fiercely that closeness felt like a threat. That balance between me and we is one of the hardest and most important parts of a healthy relationship. Welcome to our episode, and today we will talk about how to balance togetherness with individuality in your relationships. Katija, what do you think about that?
Speaker 2:This is a really important topic to talk about, especially coming from our last episode on trust, and you know we talked about commitment. So, thinking about differentiation, I sometimes wonder. This is a very like psychotherapy, family therapy field word. I wonder if people know what it means. Right, it's the ability to stay connected and then actually maintain your sense of self even when there is that tension of between right us versus me yeah, it's that you're keeping a.
Speaker 1:You're a balance between like me and we right. Like who I am as a person versus who I am in relation to my partner, and when you are in a healthy relationship, you're able to do both at the same time, and it's not a struggle, there's no tension, and so when we think about maintaining boundaries right, it's not about keeping emotional distance. You're not shut off, you're not guarded, and you're not totally or like hyper independent. You're able to rely on your partner, ask for help when you need so, but you're also able to do things on your own. You're able to make decisions by yourself, and so this is important because we people want to be able to thrive and grow as individuals without threatening the bond or their connection as partners.
Speaker 2:Right and I honestly think, like in this era of serious tension between male and female, male and female, I think one of the discourse that's been played out is, for the sake of relationship, trying to use this like diffusion of boundaries and then growth for the other person as obedience, right, in relationships and, I think, healthy relationships.
Speaker 2:let you grow as a person, um, without um making the relationship be like what is what gets damaged or lost, right, I think? Um, maybe in other episodes we can talk more about how people are kind of misrepresenting this topic and actually not taking into account like there is individual growth in a relationship.
Speaker 1:That's a sign right. It's a healthy sign that you're able to.
Speaker 2:So I guess maybe this leads us into the topic of like, what are some signs of healthy differentiation or unhealthy differentiation? If you will, you can express your needs without guilt, right, and conflict doesn't make you I think you said that already shut down or lose yourself. You feel free to pursue personal interests right, I can do things I want to do and my relationship still is fine. And then an unhealthy differentiation, I think, looks like losing your hobbies, friends, personal goals in the name of togetherness or wanting to be together or avoid vulnerability, and then to protect independence and sometimes needing constant agreement to feel secure. So I think all of those things do come up.
Speaker 2:I said a lot. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 1:No, yeah, I definitely see that like, especially with the clients that we work with. You know, sometimes you'll hear folks saying well, you know, this is a partnership, like you're supposed to make sacrifices, right, and when you look at the bigger picture, there's only one person making the sacrifices right. It's unbalanced. However, those messages are sent, whether implicitly or explicitly, and so when we think about, like, what is a healthy relationship, both people have to be putting again this magic word, that same effort right that we talked about very first episode. Both people are willing to compromise and work together and come to agreements, compromise and work together and come to agreements, but they're also able to think for themselves, be their own individual person, without feeling that like pressure or maybe feeling bad, right, like I think I, while you were talking, I'm reminded of, like mothers. Right and just like this understanding of you're expected to give all of yourself. Once you have this like role and you're no longer an individual, what do you think about that?
Speaker 2:That is. I think that's one of those tensions, right, you really have to think about how can I still maintain a sense of identity? And it's also about self-preservation. I think, like mental health, even beyond just relational health, it is individual health to make time for yourself, for your interest, and still attend to those things, right, like, okay, I do this for the family, I do this for my partner, I do this for my children. Then I'm going to do a few things for me, right, those are just for me, um, and also I should be able to say those things yeah, I should be able to say those things Without feeling shamed?
Speaker 2:And also I think we keep talking about this, maybe this should be one of the things we bring up is that emotional safety and beyond, even like a relationship having that emotional safety, I think it has to be a personal courage that gives you permission to take up space in your relationship. Like you need to give yourself that permission of saying like, hey, I'm going to have these hobbies.
Speaker 2:These are things I do because I just I do them right and I have personal goals. Yes, there are couple goals right, there are family goals, everybody has those, those. But then you have to think about, like, what are my own goals, what am I working towards?
Speaker 1:and I think you know our context is like romantic relationships, but if you think about it, differentiation has to be applied in all aspects of your life, all different types of relationships, whether it's you know, your family, whether it's you know your family, whether it's your co workers, whether it's friends that you have.
Speaker 1:You should be able to have a sense of differentiation. You're not giving all of yourself, all of your free time, to your job. You're not, you know, letting your friends make all the decisions for you. You are able to, you know, say when you don't really want to do things like you're able to do that. And so once you know somebody has a high level of differentiation, right there it's going to show up in all areas of their life, not just their romantic relationships. Obviously, you know this is our context and what our discussion is about today, and sometimes it is the most difficult one to do, because you love your partner, you care about them and you want to make them happy. But that happiness, if it's a good partner, it won't come at the expense of your happiness as well.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, it doesn't come at the expense of your personal fulfillment also, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, khadija, why do you think it's so hard to maintain like a sense of self or like your identity when you fall in love or you start a new relationship?
Speaker 2:I think it's that early stage of relationship right, trying to um, yes, there's that early love, that just really infatuation with the person, right, the honeymoon phase. But I think beyond that is also there is a need to build the couple identity right. And sometimes couples fall into like we do everything together. We've even had couples say we never fight. I'm like lies, what crack are you smoking? And no, all couples fight. But you would see couples saying that and they're really, they're protecting the relationship and they're trying to build the relational identity, same as your own personal identity. It needs to have good grounding. You. You cannot build a castle on sand, right? You cannot just have these floating identity that is not grounded in reality, right so I think, you really have to.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, think about that. When I work with my couples, I like to think give them the example of like you know it's like. So I think you really have to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, think about that when I work with my couples, I like to think, give them the example of, like you know, it's like you have your own battery right as an individual, and then, if you can imagine, like a larger, bigger battery that's above your head, that is connected to these two batteries, and so, in order to, you know, charge, charge the couple battery, you have to charge your own battery first. Right, you can't bypass yourself and kind of feed and give all of everything you have to your relationship when you don't have any battery left for you, and so it's like you really have to work on yourself and the relationship at the same time. You can't do one or the other.
Speaker 1:Right, and sometimes that's hard right, because sometimes you know there's either like cultural or family expectations where you're expected to sacrifice your individuality right, or you become like a mother and society wants you to. You know, let go of any sense of self or individual identity you had before you became a parent. And so sometimes people may feel guilt, maybe shame, for not for thinking about themselves. I hear this word a lot. They feel what Selfish, right, that word I'm like. Well, is it selfishness or is it self-care? Well, is it selfishness or is it self-care? And are you prioritizing, kind of, your health and well-being in order to take care of other people, because you can't do one without the other?
Speaker 2:That is so true. Yeah, you cannot take care of everybody else and forget about yourself. And I think it also speaks to your upbringing right fear of abandonment. Yeah, if you assert your own needs, if you say, like these are the things I want, these are the things I need in this relationship, does that mean like the person is going to leave me? Are we going to break up? So yeah, or like they're?
Speaker 1:dissatisfied with the relationship.
Speaker 2:Right, they exactly, and I think we always go back to this is really honest and true open conversations in the field of mental health talk about really listening to understand and asking questions again to understand, and really using the eye language and meeting the person where they're at, so you see and feel where they're coming from, and that builds the relationship, the foundation for individuals to be able to say, hey, these are like the things I really want to do and to voice their needs.
Speaker 2:And also sometimes past relationships teach you bad things right. You learn to compensate for relationships. Relationships you learn. You know people say like, oh, I was in a bad relationship so now I'm hyper vigilant. Really, sometimes some people do have sort of PTSD symptoms. Yeah, um, from past relationships that went really bad and sometimes you don't ever have to be in a relationship. It could be from your own family or you watch your parents.
Speaker 1:They traumatized you yeah, I mean, we talked about the last episode, right, that betrayal trauma, right, yeah, yeah, exactly yeah. So what do we do then? Like, how do you actually like increase or build differentiation? How do you, how do you? You build that me and we concept or understanding.
Speaker 2:I personally, I've been such a stubborn person. I am like no, no, no, this is me and I am going to insist on being myself. But then I have come across individuals who did not know who they were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:So self-differentiation is also work that needs to be done on your own. Yeah, you need to know who you are. You have to have a self-awareness, a sense of foundation of who you are and what are some things you never compromise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, what is? That saying right, like if you don't stand for something, you fall for anything.
Speaker 2:Exactly yeah, I guess some of those things do have a place even in like therapeutic world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. You have to have to have like that, your self-awareness, like what are your core values, what are things that you are? You will not negotiate on right whether it's. You know, what type of values does somebody have? Do they prioritize family, do they prioritize work or education? Sometimes people nowadays are asking like well, who do you vote for, right? And people laugh at that and they're like, well, you're just being dramatic. But you know, like voting is is a form of expressing your values and if if folks don't align at those core, essential life values, it's really hard to agree on how to live together in harmony in the long run.
Speaker 2:Sam, you opened up a Pandora's box. I think that's something we have to talk about in the next episode. It's political. Who did you vote for? Romantic relationship? I have seen it. It I have seen so many videos of I have to divorce my husband because he would yeah or I don't know.
Speaker 1:It was like a reality show of like she declined him because of their values didn't align, he was too conservative for her, and people were all over the internet saying like that, that's great. Other people are like, well, she's just being dramatic. But you know, like we've become more polarized in society and if those like essential shared understandings are inherently different, it's really hard to build a life together oh well, I can imagine how it would feel like a betrayal, especially if it's someone you've built a love with yeah, yeah yeah, and I think the next thing is really keeping personal passions alive yeah, you have likes, you have, uh, hobbies.
Speaker 1:You had a life and an existence before the relationship and so it doesn't make any sense for you to give those up now. Right, that obviously could be a level of compromise. That happens because now you have somebody else in your life but you're not leaving those passions altogether. Right, you're protecting that time for friends, for hobbies and for personal growth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then you know, even if say right, sometimes some roles are just overwhelming, especially becoming like a new parent and things like that Then it's incumbent upon the other partner to like keep track of what was my partner like, what did they used to love doing, what? Did I love about them, right, and then encourage those things At those times when it's impossible to have time for those things. Encourage them to connect to themselves and feel like themselves.
Speaker 1:And it really connects to our next kind of expectation of like communicate early, of like communicate early, right, like people should know, like early on in a relationship, you know what are things that are non negotiables for you, how, how can you sometimes you have to teach your partners to love you, right? I always tell people like your partner can't read your mind right, they can't make assumptions, and so if, if there are things that they truly would not know unless you tell them, like, how can they be that for you? And so getting into the habit of telling your partner, this is what's important to me, this is what I look forward to, and hopefully have a partner that will encourage you and kind of feed those, feed into those things for you so that you it helps you grow and and as a person and celebrate right the differences celebrate, celebrate absolutely and of course I think it all goes.
Speaker 2:It goes back to um also intentionally making time and space for creating that couple identity without sacrificing your individuality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you have like a date night or like a weekly like game night? What are you doing together consistently? Right, because we talked about you know your partner should feed into like your personal hobbies, but you should also make time for the couple and spend some time whether it's explicit and carved out or every day throughout the week, like there should be a balance of both.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:I think all of those things are really intentional and I can imagine people being like, oh, too much more than more often than not, hold like collectivist values of like togetherness, like that is already socialized for them. They understand the interconnectedness. They know like my behavior impacts everybody else and like you know we are all connected. Like that I feel like they really get that part of it. But then, with you know, differentiation, right, we're also balancing individuality, and that can that can be a little bit contradictory. That can be. I don't. It may feel like too like a like a western cultural mindset agenda, right, and so it's like.
Speaker 1:And so I love talking about differentiation with my clients who hold collectivist values, because oftentimes the concerns they have is that they are too kind of, um, they're asked to give up, like sacrifice, and um, too much of their needs and wants. And so you don't want to build resentment for your family, right? You want to be able to love them and care for them and want to build resentment for your family, right, you want to be able to love them and care for them and be happy at the same time, right, those two are not mutually exclusive, and so what we're talking about is how do you balance both? Right, how can you do things that you like to do? Uh, make time for yourself and be, be with your family and spend time with them as well, and hopefully you have a, have a balance Right. And if anybody's asking you to sacrifice things that are really important, that you really enjoy, I'm not saying cut them off, right, I'm not saying that. But I'm also saying like, how can you evaluate that relationship in a different way?
Speaker 2:People really need to learn to do all of those things In personal work. You know, at the same time, I think there is this misconception you have to go to therapy for all of those things. It really is soul searching, right. I mean, people have been doing it for a really long time, like take a walk by yourself and say like what are some things that are important to me? And I would say even, like people do couples counseling, even before you go into that, brainstorm your own like non-negotiables. You know, like if I play, I personally I love walking.
Speaker 2:It's my favorite thing to do. Now I take my kids walking with me, right, like how can you fit that into your thing? And they would say, like we go lucky because mommy wants to walk. I'm like, yes, I do, I want to walk, it gives me joy. And I even tell them like to be quiet for some time on the walk. We just walk in nature next to each other. But it's like me time. I'm meditating, almost right then teaching those to your loved ones. If you don't have the time, you know, just add them to it. Like is there a way they can be added? If not, how can I carve out some time to do that really, and how can I keep working towards my own goals? Because, when it's all said and done, I think if you sacrifice too much in a relationship and you give up too much of yourself, it leads to resentment. We probably will talk a little bit more about that later on.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think it's difficult to build a strong like couple identity, a we, if you're not whole as yourself, as a me right.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and your, your me, right. Doesn't have to look like everybody else. Is me Like you, don't. Self care doesn't have to look like pedicures and manicures right? Your self care can be going on a walk with your daughters, right? It's about the intention behind the action. We kind of want to challenge our listeners to identify, you know, what is one way that you can invest in yourself and what is one way that you can invest in your we this week Exactly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, think about that. That would be. Sadly, we can't check in with you, but I would love to actually have like a roundtable of how people did those things. Maybe that's the therapist in me, it's like so how did you do last week?
Speaker 1:you can just assume well, we'll check in with you all mentally, and then all right, yeah, um, how did you do that? Yeah, thinking about yourself and your family well, yeah, thank you all for listening and uh.
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