How to Fall in Love Without Losing Yourself This Year (5 Rules to Avoid Getting Stuck in the Wrong Relationship)

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0:31to the mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally. And I'm Hari Kondabolu. It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health. Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that, or am I just depressed? Health Stuff is about learning, laughing and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've seen so many good people who are excited, desperate, or impatient make bad decisions in love.

1:15Here's how not to be one of them. See, falling in love can be one of the most beautiful experiences in the world, but it can also be the place where people disappear. Not physically, but emotionally. mentally, identity-wise. We've all seen it, right? Someone meets a person they're excited about, and slowly their world becomes smaller. Their friends see them less, their goals get blurry, their routines fall apart. Their sense of self starts to merge into the other person until they can't recognize where they end and where the relationship begins. So many of us dissolve into our relationships. One of the most shocking things is how many people will push away when we think we found our person.

2:03Your person won't let you push them away and you won't because you won't leave your life for someone else. Because love was never meant to erase you. Love was meant to reveal you. So today, I want to show you how to fall in love or deepen love without losing the most important relationship you'll ever have. The one with yourself. This episode is for people who want a relationship this year or want to strengthen the one they're in without losing their independence or their identity or their inner compass. By the end of these 30 minutes, you'll understand how to build a relationship that feels like support, not sacrifice.

2:50Alignment, not abandonment. Growth, not disappearance. Let's get into it. So why do we lose ourselves in love? Psychologists call it self-expansion theory. The idea that we merge with someone we love to grow and expand our identity. Now, that's healthy. What's not healthy is when expansion becomes erasure. Here's what often happens. The biggest mistake we make in love is we confuse being chosen with being safe. We confuse intensity with intimacy. We confuse butterflies with compatibility. We confuse staying together with growing together. We confuse someone needing us with someone valuing us. Let me give you a real life example.

3:44I once coached someone who, whenever she entered a relationship, would slowly give up the parts of her life that made her, her. She stopped her hobbies first, then she stopped seeing friends, she adjusted her goals, then her schedule, then her standards. When I asked why, she said, I didn't want to lose them. But the irony was heartbreaking. She was losing herself to keep someone else. And the research is clear. People who lose their identity in relationships experience more anxiety, more conflict, and more insecurity. You know why? Because when you collapse your identity into someone else, you no longer know what keeps you steady when they pull away.

4:34You know it's time to leave when dependency replaces partnership, when fear replaces love. when hope replaces habits. So here's our first principle. Love should bring more joy in rather than take more joy out. Love should give you the opportunity to be more of you, not less of you. Love should be the doorway to express yourself fully, not hide parts of yourself. If you find yourself losing yourself, it's you doing it to yourself. We often say, you made me do that. But if you're aware, if someone is manipulating you, is shifting you in that direction, don't just let go. It feels good at the start to give up everything you love for what they love, only to realize that if they loved you, why would you do that?

5:35So it's so important to know our priorities Before we get into a relationship If you're in a relationship Make sure you know what those priorities are too So remember, keep your life big One of the biggest predictors of long-term relationship success Is how full your life is outside the relationship That's so counterintuitive, right? One of the biggest reasons you'll stay together with someone for a long time is if your life is good individually and their life is good individually. Why? Because you bring greatness to each other. You inspire each other. Science actually backs this up. Studies on relationship satisfaction show that people who maintain friendships, people who maintain hobbies, people who maintain passions, people who maintain personal goals, routines, all of that experience stronger, healthier, more secure relationships because your partner fell in love with a whole person, not a person who made them their whole world.

6:41Imagine love like a beautiful new room in your house. It expands your life, but it doesn't replace the entire structure. Here's a quick exercise. List five things you love doing alone. Now list five people who love you outside the relationship. Now list five goals that have nothing to do with love. These aren't extras or fillers. They're anchors. And anchors are what keep you steady when the waves come. One of my favorite quotes that I've heard is, don't become less so someone else can feel like more. Don't become smaller just to fit inside a relationship that refuses to grow with you. Don't become who they prefer if it means forgetting who you are.

7:35Don't become responsible for someone else's insecurities at the cost of your own confidence. Don't fall in love too fast. It's when we fall fast that we ignore the mistakes. It's when we fall fast that we don't see clearly. When we slow down, when we're patient, everything becomes visible. We can make better judgments, better choices, know our options better, and ultimately fall in love at a pace where love can always exist. When you fall in love fast, you usually fall out of it as quick. When you fall in love slow, it has the ability to outlast any relationship you've ever had. Here's principle two.

8:26Don't outsource your emotional homework Our generation has a quiet habit We want our partners to heal what we've never addressed We want them to heal our abandonment wounds We want them to heal our insecurities We want them to heal our loneliness We want them to heal our self-worth We want them to heal our emotional history But that's not love That's outsourcing A partner can support your healing but they cannot be your healing. A partner can support your growth but they can't do your growth. A partner can hold your hand while you heal but they can't walk the path for you. Research shows that the healthiest relationships are built by people who bring self-awareness into the relationship, not self-abandonment.

9:21Tell your partner how you feel. If you're anxious, name it If you're avoidant, understand it If you're triggered, explore it If you're overwhelmed, communicate it Love can flourish when two people are growing Not when one person becomes the emotional life raft for the other person You can't expect someone to complete you When you haven't met yourself completely You can't expect someone to complete you when you're still looking for love to fill the gaps you refuse to face. You can't expect someone to complete you when you're asking them to heal wounds they never caused. You can't expect someone to complete you when you haven't met the version of yourself that's ready for real love.

10:19Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the men's clinic at UCLA Health and host of the Mailroom Podcast. Each January, guys everywhere make the same resolutions. Get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? To kick off the new year, I sat down with Dr. Steve Poulter, a psychologist with over 30 years experience helping men unpack shame, anxiety, and emotional pain they were never taught to name. In a powerful two-part conversation, we discuss why men aren't emotionally bulletproof, why shame hides in plain sight, and how real strength comes from listening to yourself and to others.

10:56Guys who are toxic, they're immature, or they've got something they just haven't resolved. Once that gets resolved, then there comes empathy and some compassion. If you want this to be the year you stop powering through pain and start understanding what's underneath, listen to The Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

11:35Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight. You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about. Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health. We talk about all the ways to keep your body and mind, inside and out, healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection. We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.

12:11Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

12:27Principle three, don't ignore the signals. People lose themselves in love overnight because they don't stay vigilant about the signs they see. These are the signs you're losing yourself in a relationship. You apologize for things that aren't your fault. Your partner's preferences always override yours. Your goals feel smaller and theirs feel more important. Your voice feels quieter and theirs feels louder. Your boundaries get blurry and they don't respect them. Your world gets narrower and you stop checking in with yourself. Hearing this from a friend broke my heart. They said, I love him, but I don't love who I become around him.

13:21That sentence says everything. If love is costing you yourself, it's not worth it. Healthy love won't ask you to shrink It won't punish your ambition It won't resent your independence It won't dim your light Because healthy love says Stay who you are Grow alongside me Not beneath me Stop ignoring red flags Just because you're attracted to them Stop avoiding red flags Just because you don't want to start over again Stop avoiding red flags because the attention feels good after a long time without it. Stop avoiding red flags because you're scared this might be the best you'll get. Stop avoiding red flags because you're hoping their potential will one day become their reality.

14:15Whenever anyone breaks up and I ask them if they saw the signs, they can name all of them. They never turned up on time. They never really messaged back. They made me chase them a little. They never fully gave me their attention when we were out together. They never defended me in front of someone who was being harsh. They never encouraged my independence. When I told them what I wanted to do, they didn't really have anything to say. All of a sudden, when someone breaks up with you, you can see everything clearly. But when you were with them, you let go of it because you were attracted to how they sounded, how they looked, what they did for work, what people thought about them.

14:55So many of us don't listen carefully to these signals. So many of us avoid these red flags that are staring us in the face. And I get it. It's exciting. It's enthralling. It's intoxicating, right? When you find that person and it feels good. I get it. I know you want to be held. You want to feel safe. But do you want to be held for a night or held for your life? Do you want to feel insecure when you're with them? and still look for safety elsewhere? Do you want to say and hear I love you but not really believe it? So many of us avoid red flags because we're moving too fast. Here's principle four.

15:46The three love lines you must never cross. These are three boundaries the healthiest couples never compromise. Number one, autonomy. You maintain your own thoughts, interests, and choices. The right person is not trying to change your interests and your choices. They may help you understand them more. They may help you learn about them more. They're not making you want more. If your partner doesn't want to start a business and you convince them they should, that doesn't mean you care about them. You just projected your goals onto them. If your partner feels you are not ambitious enough, you get to ask yourself what ambition means to you.

16:32You get to ask yourself what success means to you. Number two, equity. Both people give, both people receive. Not 90-10, not 80-20. Partnership means partnership. And here's the thing. In long-term relationships, there'll be times when one person does more than the other knowing that a few years later the other person could be doing more. But the point is both people are willing to give and receive and show up for each other. And the third is emotional honesty. If you're in a healthy relationship you can express discomfort without fear. You can say I need this without feeling judged. You can say that hurt me without feeling weak You can say I'm scared without triggering the other person Couples who maintain these boundaries Report stronger long-term satisfaction and lower conflict Because the relationship becomes a place of truth Not performance Principle five Fall in love with someone who loves your life Not just you One of the biggest mistakes people make is falling for someone who loves them, but doesn't love their lifestyle, their dreams, their values, their growth, their relationships, their independence.

18:01If someone loves only the parts of you that serve them, it's not love, it's possession. Real love says, I don't want to be your whole life. I want to be a part of the life you're living. The right partner isn't threatened by your dreams. They're inspired by them. The right partner doesn't shrink your world. They expand it. The right partner doesn't steal your identity. They celebrate it. If someone requires your disappearance in order to stay, they're not your person. They're a limitation. So many of us get manipulated. we get limited by people who make our feel our dreams are too small. I'm sure you've been with someone before and you said, hey, this is what I'm thinking of doing.

18:53And they said, well, I don't know if you can really do that. I don't know if that's really possible. Now they may be saying it from a good intention, but you want someone who engages with that and goes, how about tell me about it? I want to know about it. By the way, I've made this mistake as well. Sometimes the realist in me can just be like, hey, yeah, I don't think that's going to work. And I've had to learn that when someone's sharing an idea with me, I've got to engage with their excitement. I've got to engage with their enthusiasm. I've got to engage with their energy about this. I actually have so many friends last year who broke up with their partners because their partners didn't like to see them shine.

19:30And this has become a real challenge right now. So many people are struggling with this where they're with someone who doesn't want to see them work hard, who doesn't want to see them achieve, who doesn't want to see them grow because they'd prefer they played small so that it makes them feel better. If someone doesn't want you to win so that they feel better about themselves, they're not your person. If someone doesn't want you to grow so that they don't feel small, they're not your person. If someone doesn't want you to achieve things so that they don't feel behind, they're not your person. Your person will want you to be the best version of you and try to become the best version of them because it's not a competition.

20:18It's connection. I once met a couple who'd been together for 40 years. They didn't talk about soulmates or destiny or perfect matches. They said something far more profound. We built two whole lives and then learned how to walk side by side. Their secret? They never stopped becoming individuals. They never stopped tending to their friendships. They never stopped learning about each other. They never stopped growing together. They never stopped growing individually. They never stopped choosing themselves. And they never stopped choosing each other. They understood that the healthiest relationships are not two halves, becoming one.

21:05They're two people walking side by side, staying connected. That's what's so interesting. we feel like we become one when you meet the one you merge it's you have one life now it's a mistake you have two minds two brains two hearts how can you have one life there's two lives that matter and then the life of your relationship so here's the truth that i want to leave you with you can fall in love this year without losing yourself You can be committed and still be independent You can give without disappearing You can love someone deeply and still honour the person you're becoming Love is not meant to erase you Love is meant to elevate you So remember this Choose a love that expands your world Not one that replaces it Choose a love that helps you grow Not one you have to shrink for Choose a love that feels like partnership Not self-abandonment And most importantly Choose a love where you don't lose yourself Because the right person will never ask you to If you just went through a breakup I hope this episode helps you If you're in a relationship I hope this episode helps you And if you're looking for love I hope this episode helps you I made this episode because I think we cause ourselves so much pain when we fall in love fast, ignore the red flags, lose ourselves, don't protect ourselves, override our beliefs and values in order to desperately find love, only to still be alone at the end of it.

22:54Here's the sad truth. We change who we are so that they'll stay. And then they leave because we changed. It's so interesting. we lose people not because we were inadequate but because we lost ourselves and that person wasn't our person I think we put so much pressure on finding the person that we think if we find someone who shows interest in us then that's enough not realizing that interest doesn't mean long-term intimacy it doesn't mean long-term connection it doesn't mean that so when I'm telling you to not lose yourself in a relationship it's so that you always have yourself so that you have the person you can rely on so that you have the person who protects you and then when you do find the right person you'll be able to build something together whereas hoping everyone's the right person and pretending someone's the right person how many times have you ever done that where you meet someone and you make them the perfect person you make them the right person because that's what you want you don't even get to know them because you're just projecting what you want onto them.

24:05I hope this episode saves you time and from the pain of lessons that you don't need to learn yourself. Thank you for listening. I hope you've subscribed. Remember, I'm forever in your corner and I'm always rooting for you. Hey everyone, if you loved that conversation, go and check out my episode with the world's leading therapist, Laurie Gottlieb, where she answers the biggest questions that people ask in therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak, and dating. If you're trying to figure out that space right now, you won't want to miss this conversation. If it's a romantic relationship, hold hands.

24:45It's really hard to argue. It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold hands as you're having the conversation. It's so lovely. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.