Healthy relationships have a place for both intimacy and autonomy. This means that the couple has space for common interests and pastime, points of contact and similarity, but at the same time there is also space where everyone could be alone with themselves or with other people, relax, recover and gain fresh impressions.B In codependent relationships, there is no space for autonomy and separateness - the partners are constantly in fusion, which provokes quarrels and conflicts, because if autonomy is completely absent, the relationship becomes oversaturated, since such a couple is fenced off from the exchange of energy with the world. The other extreme is the struggle for own autonomy, observed in counter-dependent individuals. Often such people avoid relationships or avoid contact in them. For their partner, they are constantly busy and unavailable, sometimes even if they are nearby. Such people may not answer calls and messages, get scared of attention, disappear from relationships for a long time and suddenly return. In the codependent pattern, the tendency towards intimacy predominates, in the counterdependent pattern - towards autonomy, and for a healthy relationship a harmonious combination of these tendencies is necessary. How to maintain a balance of autonomy and intimacy? Firstly, it is important that partners respect not only the similarities, but also the differences in each other friend. To do this, you can try to periodically discuss how we differ, in what ways we are different, and how these differences help maintain balance in the couple. Some differences contribute to mutual complementarity (for example, if one partner is very sociable and the second is not, the first can introduce the second to new people, expanding his social circle, and the second can reveal to the first the value and depth of solitude). Other differences can create constructive tension in a couple when partners are interested in each other and always have something to discuss because they are different from each other and can give each other a fresh perspective on the problem. Secondly, you should make sure that each partner has his own personal space, and that it is respected by the other. For example, a personal diary, which a partner will never look into without asking, time for solitude, his friends and acquaintances, his hobbies and interests - everything that gives a person the opportunity to return to himself. If a person sacrifices this space for the sake of another, or completely draws the other partner into his personal space, a disharmonious situation arises, which over time leads to the fact that the partners have nothing to exchange. Being constantly only next to each other and not allowing themselves to temporarily move away, they can become boring to each other, since this situation impedes the development of each of them. Thirdly, in a relationship it is important that both partners firmly, but environmentally speaking, define their boundaries and respected each other's boundaries. Personal boundaries can relate to certain preferences and their absence (you shouldn’t do something you don’t like, or agree to it by overstepping yourself), desires or unwillingnesses (in a healthy relationship, one partner can freely tell the other that he doesn’t want to go for a walk right now, and the second will treat this reluctance with understanding), views and principles, as well as other aspects of life in which it is valuable for everyone to remain true to oneself and agree with oneself. Fourthly, it is good if each partner can clearly identify their needs, turn to the other with a request, but at the same time be able to take responsibility for their needs. Autonomy implies that we are independent and self-sufficient people, but this does not mean that we do not need others at all. Sometimes it is more pleasant to receive warmth and attention from another person than to take care of yourself. However, another person has his own limitations - he may be stressed, ill, not have resources, not be ready right now to provide support or provide it in a specific form, and he has every right to do all this. Therefore, you can speak out the need, place it in the field of relationships, but.