By By Susan Wambui Muigai
When I moved in with my boyfriend, I was genuinely happy. I thought I had finally found peace someone to come home to, share meals with, and build a life beside. For the first time in a long while, I felt settled. But beneath that comfort, something else was quietly happening: I was disappearing from my own life.
At first, it looked harmless. I stopped going out for coffee dates with my girlfriends because I thought, “I see him every evening I’m content.” I stopped replying to group chats in time because dinner, laundry, or simply being tired from couple life became my excuse. My hobbies? Slowly forgotten. And it wasn’t because he told me to give them up, I did it myself, without realizing it.
When Comfort Becomes Isolation
There’s a strange kind of loneliness that creeps in when you wrap your whole life around one person. I remember one evening after a disagreement with my boyfriend, I scrolled through my phone looking for someone to talk to, but it hit me I hadn’t checked in on my friends for months. I didn’t even know how to start that conversation anymore.
And this is something many women experience but rarely speak about. We’re conditioned to think that a relationship, especially one where you share a home, should take centre stage in our lives. Society has raised us to believe that nurturing love means sacrificing everything else your friends, your passions, your independence.
But why should love cost you your entire world?
Women Need to Protect Their Individuality
It’s beautiful to move in with someone you love. But it should never mean abandoning your life outside the relationship. Your friendships, your goals, and your self-growth matter just as much in love as they did when you were single.
Women must learn to maintain their own space, physically and emotionally. You should still meet your friends on Saturday afternoons. You should still pursue your hobbies, whether it’s yoga, reading, or painting. And you should never stop checking in on your mental and emotional well-being.
A healthy relationship should support your growth, not cage you in.
How Can We Do Better?
If you decide to move in with your boyfriend, set boundaries early. Talk about the importance of personal time. Normalize spending weekends apart doing different things. Plan your life in a way that your world doesn’t shrink to the four walls you share.
Rekindle your friendships. It’s okay to call your girls just to laugh about random things. Prioritize meet-ups. Protect your space.
And most importantly, keep growing. Don’t stop chasing your dreams because you’ve found love. The best relationships are where two whole people build a life together, not where one person disappears into the other.
The Bottom Line
Moving in with your boyfriend shouldn’t mean moving out of your own life. Yes, love is beautiful. But you are more than someone’s partner. You are a whole woman with dreams, friendships, and a future that belongs to you.
Protect that woman. Fight for her joy, her peace, and her independence, even in love
