3. Talk it over.

Bake some cookies and make a cup of tea or coffee.Sit down together somewhere peaceful and tell your partner you need to have a positive heart-to-heart chat. Use a calm voice and be very friendly. Start the discussion with your partner by telling them how much you love them and how grateful you are for this person being in your life. Then proceed to discuss in a kind but frank fashion that you believe that the healthiness of your relationship is dependent on both of you being able to grow as independent people as well as together in a couple. Basically, you are suggesting that the happiness of both you requires letting a little air into each other's lives in ways that can only enhance your loving relationship. Ways to help you include:

* Avoid blaming, never say "you this, you that" and always voice it with "I" statements and talk about goals, healthiness and not about things that are going wrong between the two of you. See How to Practice Nonviolent Communication.

* Make it clear that this is about ensuring that you return to being the individual that they fell in love with at the beginning; that you are losing a sense of this person and want to be yourself again.

* Paint them a picture of how expanding your horizons as individuals will enable your "coupledom" to flourish when the two of you share personal discoveries. Use the metaphor by psychotherapist Wendy Allen of both of you paddling your own canoe, side by side, rather than the same canoe together; she says that space apart helps to ensure that each person carries a cohesive and whole sense of self that strengthens the sense of togetherness.

* Try defining what you mean by "space". This can alleviate a lot of the potential for fear and resentment if your partner understands what you mean by giving each other space. Knowing what type of space is sought means that it can more readily be accommodated and is less likely to result in friction. For you, space might be (among other things):

Leisure time

Quiet time

Working space

Emotional space

Financial space See How to Take a Healthy Approach to Finances in Your Relationship.