Compromises are unavoidable in relationships.

We would sometimes have to let go of things or relocate in order to accommodate our partner.

However, there are some things you should never give up in a relationship, and sometimes even in marriage.

Seven of these items are:

1. Your passion

One of the reasons I knew I’d marry my husband was because he read my novels and enthusiastically discussed them with me.

He read my blog and was encouraging, but not in the vague sense that someone says “that’s great, babe” without looking up from their phone.

I mean, we talked about my novel characters together.

And I remember thinking, “This is how it should feel.”

Someone who adores you and shares your passions. Someone whose presence in your life empowers you rather than diminishes you.

I’m telling you this so you’ll understand that the standard exists.

It’s not too much to ask.

A man who supports your passion is not a unicorn; he is simply someone who loves you.

Many women abandon their passions because the man in their lives cannot handle it. 

They were in love. They desired peace.

Your passion existed before he arrived, and it will survive any relationship that asks you to leave it.

A man who loves you will not ask you to give up your life to be with him.

He will read your work, attend your events, and proudly tell others about what you do.

He cannot truly love you unless he can celebrate what makes you come alive. 

2. Your dreams

Dreams aren’t just nice ideas about the future; they are the architecture of who you are becoming.

And if the person you’re with can’t fit in that architecture, love alone can’t bridge that gap.”

I’ve seen women give up dreams they’d had for years for men who weren’t even sure about them.

Some women wanted to be politicians but gave up their dream because their partners thought women had no business in those spaces.

Some wanted to leave, start a business, follow callings that scared the people they loved, and fold instead of follow through.

And let me say this for the men as well, because it cuts both ways.

Don’t let a pretty distraction draw you away from your purpose.

To do great things, you need the right partner. Someone who shares your vision and runs to it with you, not someone who makes you feel like a fool for having it.

Know each other’s dreams early because building a life with someone that can’t support where you are going is not love.

It is a beautiful detour, but at some point it will require a very painful U-turn.

3. The Family and True Friends

When I was a kid, I thought family was just people who shared your blood. I was told that definition, and I did not question it.

And now that I’m an adult, I have a very different definition.

Family are the people who really love you and whom you really love back. People that show up for you. They tell you the truth when it is inconvenient.

These people were there before the relationship and will still be there whatever happens to it.”

The Bible says there is a friend closer than a brother.

A friendship like that, I-will-not-leave-you, is one of the most precious things a woman can have. And it’s one of the first things a controlling relationship will try to strip from you.

I’ve learned that the people who really care about you make bad relationships very uncomfortable.

They ask questions. They see changes in you.

They will say things like, “You seem different,” or “I don’t like how he spoke to you right now.”

And a man who wants free access to you will find those people threatening.

If a man is trying to keep you from the people who truly love you, he isn’t keeping you safe from them.

He is keeping himself from being seen clearly by them. He is protecting himself from being seen clearly by them.

Keep your people, the ones who knew you before him.

They are not a competition for your love; they are your safety net, and you might need them more than you know at this moment in time.

4. Your Financial Freedom

Money represents freedom, which is not something you give up for love.

I want to proceed with caution because this is a nuanced situation.

Some women make a mutually agreed-upon decision to leave paid work to manage their homes and raise their children.

That is a valid choice when it is freely made and proper arrangements are in place to ensure that the woman is never financially stranded.

That is not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about the woman whose partner gradually eroded her financial independence until she had no money of her own, no career to return to, and no way to leave even when it was necessary.

It usually begins with “You don’t have to work; I’ll take care of everything.”

Then he says, “Why are you spending money without asking me?” And ends with a woman who needs permission to buy a bus ticket.

Having your own money is not a sign of distrust in your partner or a sign that you are planning to leave.

It’s a silent promise that you’re in this relationship because you want to be, not because you don’t have another option.

Never let anyone take that away from you, not even someone you love with all your heart.

5. Happiness Without Them

What makes you happy that has nothing to do with your relationship/marriage?

If you can’t answer that question, you’re not doing good. 

You can’t find your happiness entirely within another person. Too delicate here. 

A person can leave, and people change, and a person can wake up one day and be different from who they were, and if your entire happiness was housed in them, you have nowhere to go.

Hold on to the things that make you happy outside the relationship.

Whether or not things are good between the two of you has nothing to do with your friendships, your hobbies, your faith, or your ability to have a good day.

“A relationship should make you happy.” It should not be the only source of it.

And if the relationship were to end tomorrow, not that it will, but if it did, you should still have something to come home to in yourself.

6. Your Self-Value

A relationship that requires you to feel small in order to exist is not worth existing.

Sometimes long-term exposure to someone who doesn’t value you doesn’t look like abuse.

Sometimes it is a relationship where you are always asking yourself if you are enough. 

You came into this relationship whole.

Nobody picked you up and put you here. Your value was here before they came and will be here after they are gone.

Just because someone doesn’t see your worth doesn’t mean you don’t have any.

7. Your personality

This is the one that comes on you so slowly that by the time you finally see it, years have gone by.

One day you wake up and realize you’re dressing differently, thinking differently, no longer spending time with certain people, and no longer chasing certain parts of yourself, all to make yourself fit more comfortably into a relationship that was supposed to add to you.

You, the entirety of you, your identity, your values, and your quirks took years to build. 

“It was shaped by everything you’ve been through and survived and learned.”

That is no mean thing.” That’s all there is to it.

And real love won’t ask you to give it up.

Love is worth fighting for, but not at the cost of everything that made you worth loving in the first place.

The right person won’t ask you to choose between them and yourself. They will never put you in a place where loving them means losing yourself.

And if you have been quietly handing over pieces of yourself one compromise at a time, it is not too late to ask for them back.

Take the little piece first. Then take the next.

You were a person before this relationship. Just make sure you have someone in there.