In the beginning of my relationship my SO found it hard to enforce his need for personal space. I found it easy to say yes when he expressed the need for alone time. But then sent messages about missing him or invites for coffee or offers of dinner. He found it hard and uncomfortable to have to keep saying “no” to these invites after he had expressly told me he needed alone time. This obviously started to cause resentment.

I had to learn to give him space to say “no”. I had to learn to be gracious about it and back off. To send nice texts that didn’t involve me whining about how much I missed him or how alone I felt.

So here is what I learnt

  1. Don’t argue the no, listen and respect it
  2. Don’t play those games where you pretend you respect the no but then you try and wrangle it into a yes.