Oh Honey. I’m writing this on behalf of your family, your friends, and your spouse. It pains me greatly to say this. Believe me.

You aren’t *you* anymore. 

No, I don’t mean in a Matrix/clone/alternate universe kind of way. (Although that would be AWESOME lets talk about that idea another time.)

I mean in a “I flushed my personality down the drain with the teeth-whitening mouthwash I gargled on my wedding day.” You used to be your own person. You had what we like to call a personality. You liked things. You hated things. You had a “sense” of “humor.” You had original thoughts. You disagreed.

And now you don’t.

You lost your personality in a relationship. It’s a dangerous cycle known to us in the biz as “The Degenerative Marital Personality Syndrome.” Caused usually by marriage to a person you may perceive as better or more important than yourself, or a weak/insecure personality, symptoms can include but are not limited to:

• Spending 100% of time, free or otherwise, with or communicating with your spouse
• Abdicating friendships
• “Not allowing” your adult spouse to spend time with friends or make their own decisions
• Using “we” when you really mean “my spouse”
• Assuming all hobbies, likes, dislikes of your spouse
• Refusing to disagree with your spouse
• Fear of trying new things
• Texting/calling your spouse before doing anything. at. all.
• Dropping out of school/off the face of the earth to become a hermit mom or take the job their family offered you out of pressure
• Never making new friends because “What’s the point?”
• Giving up the things you love because your spouse doesn’t like them or doesn’t do them

You’re in denial, I know. You say things like “Well, my husband is my best friend! I don’t need anyone else!” or “We’re just so similar – of course we like and do all the same things!” or “My wife is the most important thing in my life.”

Sure. Those might be true. But that doesn’t change the fact that you are no longer *you*. You gave up everything about yourself to… well, we don’t know what. This person obviously loved you. Why did you feel you needed to change? I sincerely hope it wasn’t because you thought you weren’t good enough or didn’t like yourself. Because, honey, that ain’t love.

Love doesn’t mean BECOMING the other person. Love doesn’t mean you have to watch/know every player on the BYU Basketball team or learn to ski. Love doesn’t mean you stop watching Dancing with the Stars or MMA fights because your spouse isn’t into them. Love doesn’t mean you have to choose your spouse over friends or one side of the family over another.

This isn’t to say your spouse isn’t important, or that you shouldn’t care about their likes/dislikes/wishes/desires. You don’t just get to go all YOLO and make them watch 50 episodes of Say Yes to the Dress or every single March Madness game. You don’t get to go party with friends every weekend or force them to hang out with your family all the time. That’s not what this is about.

This intervention is about YOU. You were you before your spouse. *YOU* were the reason they love you. And the reason your friends and family loved you even before that! Why are you changing that? Why are you letting your *you* slip away for a spouse-mirror version of you?

“We’re in med school…” Oh you’re both accepted and attending med school? No? Just your husband? Ok then HE’S in med school, you need to feel like you do something important so you say “we.” I don’t call myself a feminist but I can tell you that your husband going to dental/med/law school shouldn’t be the most defining thing in your life. Guess what? You are important. You’re your own person. Do something worthwhile and be proud of that.

Don’t lose yourself. Don’t become your spouse. You are complementary for a reason. The relationship doesn’t need two of your spouse. It needs one them and one you.

Do what you love. (unless it’s like drugs or alcohol or cheating or watching the Kardashians or something awful like that)

Keep making friends and trying new things.

Don’t lose the things that made people love you in the first place.

You are never going to feel fulfilled if you wait for marriage or motherhood to do it for you. Marriage and motherhood are wonderful. But you still gotta be you, or else you can’t succeed in either. Wow, I really might be a feminist?

Learn new things. Be interesting. Refresh yourself. Stay thirsty, my friends.

We don’t want to lose *you*.