You know that friend who disappears completely when they start dating someone new?
The one who used to have opinions about restaurants, weekend plans, their own career—until suddenly every sentence starts with “we” and every decision needs approval?
I used to judge those people. Then I became one.
It took me three years to realize I’d handed over my entire identity to someone else. Not because they demanded it, but because I thought that’s what love looked like.
The erosion happened so gradually that I didn’t notice until I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made a decision without checking in first.
Psychology has a term for this: Enmeshment. It’s when boundaries between two people become so blurred that individual identity gets lost.
And while it might feel like devotion in the moment, research shows it’s actually a fast track to resentment, anxiety, and relationship breakdown.
Here’s what I’ve learned about the hidden costs of making someone else your emotional headquarters—and what you’ve probably already given up without realizing it.
1) Your decision-making confidence
Remember when you could pick a restaurant without a committee meeting? Or buy a shirt without sending three photos for approval?
When someone becomes your center of gravity, every choice starts feeling like it needs validation. You’re not just asking their opinion—you’re asking for permission to have preferences.
I noticed this when a colleague asked where I wanted to grab lunch. My first instinct was to text my partner. About lunch. With a coworker. At noon on a Tuesday.
That’s when it hit me: I’d stopped trusting my own judgment about things that had nothing to do with them.
Psychologists call this “external locus of control”—when you believe outcomes in your life are determined by forces outside yourself. Research consistently links it to higher anxiety and lower self-esteem.
The truth? Most decisions don’t need a co-pilot. The more you outsource small choices, the less capable you feel of making big ones.
2) Your emotional regulation skills
When someone else becomes your emotional thermostat, you lose the ability to regulate your own temperature.
Bad day at work? You need them to make it better. Exciting news? It doesn’t feel real until they validate it. Their mood becomes your mood. Their stress becomes your stress.
This is called “emotional fusion,” and it’s exhausting for everyone involved.
I learned this the hard way when my partner went through a rough patch at work.
For three months, I absorbed every frustration, every setback, as if it were happening to me. I’d spend hours trying to fix their mood, strategizing solutions to problems that weren’t mine to solve.
Meanwhile, my own emotional needs went on the back burner. I couldn’t access calm unless they were calm first.
Studies show that people who rely on others for emotional regulation have higher rates of anxiety and depression. Why? Because you’ve handed over the remote control to your inner state.
3) Your separate friendships
- “We don’t really vibe with them.”
- “We’re too busy this weekend.”
- “We prefer staying in.”
Notice how quickly “I” becomes “we” when you make someone your whole world?
Your friendships start getting filtered through their preferences. You skip events they wouldn’t enjoy. You stop maintaining relationships they don’t enthusiastically support.
Gradually, your social circle shrinks to mutual friends only. The people who knew you before become distant memories.
Research on social support shows that diverse friendship networks—not just couple friends—are crucial for psychological wellbeing.
When all your relationships flow through one person, you’re putting all your emotional eggs in one basket.
I lost two close friendships this way. Not through drama or conflict, but through slow neglect. By the time I realized what had happened, those bridges felt too weathered to rebuild.
4) Your personal goals and ambitions
Here’s a question: What was the last goal you set that had nothing to do with them?
When someone becomes your center, their dreams start feeling more important than yours. You become the supporting actor in their story, forgetting you’re supposed to be starring in your own.
Maybe you stop pursuing that promotion because it would mean less time together. Or you abandon that creative project because they don’t really get it.
Your ambitions get edited down to what fits into the relationship.
During my years in media work, I watched colleagues turn down incredible opportunities because their partner “needed them” to maintain the status quo.
One woman passed on her dream job because it would have meant her partner eating dinner alone twice a week.
Psychology research on self-determination shows that abandoning personal goals for relationships leads to long-term resentment—even when the sacrifice feels noble at the time.
5) Your relationship with solitude
When did being alone start feeling like punishment?
People who center their lives on someone else often develop an allergy to solitude. Empty space feels threatening. Silence needs filling. A Saturday without plans together feels like rejection.
You lose the ability to enjoy your own company because you’ve forgotten who that company is.
I used to love solo morning walks. Reading alone in cafes. Traveling for work and having hotel room service in peaceful silence.
But somewhere along the way, these moments started feeling incomplete, like experiencing life without a witness didn’t count.
Studies on solitude show it’s essential for creativity, self-reflection, and emotional processing. When you can’t be alone without feeling anxious or empty, you’ve lost touch with a fundamental part of being human.
6) Your ability to set boundaries
Boundaries feel like betrayal when someone is your everything.
Saying no to them feels impossible. Needing space feels selfish. Having different opinions feels like conflict.
So you stop setting boundaries altogether. You become endlessly accommodating, mistaking self-erasure for love.
After having a child, I finally understood that boundaries aren’t walls—they’re load-bearing structures. Without them, everything collapses. But by then, I’d spent years training someone that my needs were negotiable while theirs were not.
Research on relationship satisfaction shows that couples with clear boundaries report higher happiness and longevity. Fusion might feel like intimacy, but it’s actually its enemy.
7) Your sense of identity
This is the big one. The cumulative cost of everything else.
Who are you when they’re not around?
If that question feels hard to answer, you’ve likely sacrificed more than you realize.
Your opinions, preferences, interests, quirks—all the things that make you distinctly you—have been sanded down to fit better with someone else. You’ve become a reaction to them rather than an action of your own.
In my brand strategy days, we called this “losing your positioning.” When a brand tries to be everything to its main customer, it ends up meaning nothing to anyone. The same applies to people.
The irony? The person they fell for—that independent, interesting individual with their own life—no longer exists. You’ve edited yourself out of your own story.
Final thoughts
Recognizing these patterns isn’t about blame or shame. It’s about recalibration.
Love doesn’t require losing yourself. In fact, the healthiest relationships are between two complete people who choose to share their lives, not merge them.
Start small. Make one decision today without asking for input. Spend an hour alone doing something you enjoy. Text that friend you’ve been neglecting.
The goal isn’t to push anyone away—it’s to come back to yourself. To remember that being someone’s partner doesn’t mean disappearing into them.
Your life needs a center. Make sure it’s you.
