“Don’t lose yourself in this relationship” – It is a maxim that is so often used in our society, one that we may have been told in the past or one that we have passed on to a friend who has recently got into a relationship. The idea of losing yourself within a relationship largely has negative connotations and is often used to point out that someone should not change or should not forget about their other friends once they are in a relationship. However, is this advice practical or helpful at all for someone who is beginning a new relationship? And how does it relate to a possible Buddhist approach to relationships and love in general?

Firstly, it is necessary to assess some of the common motivations behind the idea. “Losing yourself” can often be synonymous for “change” and what is often implied by well-meaning friends is that they do not want you to change or to become different from the person they know. This is always a tricky issue as, when we are in a relationship, naturally we will be able to spend less time with our friends and we will certainly change based on our relationship with a loved one. On another level, “losing yourself” is often seen as a betrayal of values or a betrayal of some sort of true personality. While it is clearly wise to take heed of advice about maintaining certain basic moral principles, how helpful is it to associate the inevitable change of a personality with “betrayal”? It seems to me that many of these warnings about not betraying your true identity or losing yourself in a relationship lead to unnecessary anxiety. In addition, sometimes those who give these warnings do not have our best wishes at heart and simply are afraid of change and upheaval to their friendships. In this way our experience of entering into a relationship often turns into a complicated and unpleasant exercise in mediating between the competing demands of our friends and partner.

The demand, then, that we preserve our identity in a relationship seems to be an impossible task and one that contradicts the Buddhist idea of the transitory nature of identity. Within Buddhist thought, it is perhaps possible to see ways in which the notion of losing yourself in a relationship could be extremely beneficial for us and also for all our friends and loved ones. The Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh often emphasises the benefits of cultivating a deep love with our partners, a love which can be then extended to all our friends and family. He states in Teachings on Love:

“Through my love for you, I want to express my love for the whole cosmos, the whole of humanity, and all beings. By living with you, I want to learn to love everyone and all species. If I succeed in loving you, I will be able to love everyone and all species on Earth…This is the real message of love.”

Rather than seeing a relationship as something that might lead people away from their true self, Thich Nhat Hanh embraces the transiency of identity and sees relationships as a unique opportunity to cultivate and develop our ability to love not only our partners, but the entirety of humanity. Through using our immediate relationship with a loved one as a starting point, we can widen our love to our friends and family. In this way, when we place an expansive love at the centre of our relationships, our ego may disappear and we may finally lose the self that has been the root of all suffering. Rather than jealously guarding our relationships and friendships, if we allow ourselves to be utterly changed by the love within them, it can only be a benefit for everyone. If relationships are approached in this way, I feel that even one positive relationship can enrich all our friendships and our relationships with our families. When seen in this light, there is no need to fear losing ourselves when we love another as losing ourselves may in fact be the only way to gain a love for humanity.