Today my sister messaged our group chat talking about how some of her friends criticized a recent girl’s trip we took. They said things like: “only single girls go on girl trips” and “if you have someone and go on girl trips that’s not real love” or “how can they leave their kids?”

Clearly, these girls haven’t seen all the recent studies urging women to take mini vacations from their families… anyhow, I’m not about to criticize their beliefs (even when taking time for yourself has been scientifically proven to be beneficial); perhaps that’s the way their relationships work.

But I will defend mine.

When I began dating my husband, we spent considerable time apart. We have always had our own separate lives. We traveled on our own or with our friends, we had girl’s nights and boy’s nights…in essence, we were our own individuals. People who witnessed our relationship would often criticize us, saying it wasn’t going to last. And while perhaps our time apart may have caused rifts in our relationship, it also strengthened it in many ways.

I mean, no matter how much time you spend with another person, he or she could be unfaithful, for example, which is one of people’s fears when they make comments like the one above.

However, I feel like the more suffocated a person feels in a relationship, the more he or she might want to take a break from it.

But all of that is inferential and hypothetical. We can’t prevent someone from doing something he wants to do no matter how much control we want to have over him. There is no fool-proof plan, and we are all susceptible to being human.

What we can do is learn to love ourselves and live/build our own lives, independent of our couple lives. And, for me, that is paramount.

As a young woman, too many times I saw the same scenario: a person who was getting a divorce or breaking up (reason irrelevant) and felt that she had wasted her life. “So many years,” she would say, “wasted!” Or “ I should have done this or that.” And if that this or that means spending every waking moment with the one you love, then by all means do it! But don’t resent him or regret it once it’s over.

Traveling the world, spending time with friends, and living out adventures have given me just as much joy as my relationship.

I am much more than a wife or a girlfriend or even a mom.

I have always been a passionate and multifaceted woman with enormous dreams and aspirations. And being true to that person has made me infinitely happy.

But I still recall the comments that came before my trips to teach abroad. Things like, “Aren’t you afraid he’ll cheat on you?”

And my reply was always the same: “I’m more afraid to stay and that he may cheat anyway?”

It was as if this fear of getting cheated on was supposed to prevent me from living my life. It just seemed so silly to me. My biggest fear was not cheating, it was regretting not having lived my life how I wanted to. And if that meant I didn’t have someone waiting for me when I got back home, I was okay with that.

Long story short, if tomorrow my relationship is not a part of my happiness, I’ll have to either try to fix it or move on. Regardless of my choice, I’ll be grateful for the beautiful life I have been privileged to live and my time won’t have felt wasted.

I’ve traveled, modeled, written a book, hung out with my family and friends as I pleased, and I have no regrets because being in a relationship never stopped me from being me.

Until then, I will continue to live and so will he. And we will both continue to be INDIVIDUALS sharing a life. He’s not my other half, and I’m not his.

We are both whole.

Two people who love themselves first and because of that can love each other.