Recently Dr. Gayle MacBride was asked that very question. Here’s her response:
The “boyfriend effect” is real. Gen Z doesn’t have a lock on this effect, they just have social media platforms to talk about it. We have long known that when people get into committed relationships they tend to dress down a bit, gain weight, and there have even been studies that show when women are married to men, the men live long, but women’s longevity is diminished.
Cis Het women traditionally and generally speaking feel a pull to “care take”. This is likely socialization at work. We women (I can put myself in that category) get into long term relationships and we tend to make sure our partners (and anyone else in the relationship, i.e. kids) get taken care of first. We have been trained from an early age to meet the needs of others before our own. In doing so, we can “forget” or neglect our own needs. This probably results in the “girlfriend effect” by which women tend to help men stay healthy by encouraging them to go to the doctor etc. We likely do other things like clean, do laundry, and cook, which are often of great benefit to the men we date or marry.
None of this is a harbinger of doom for you or your relationship, but likely this current generation is noticing these changes and is asking themselves a very important question, “Is this what I want and does it fit with who I am?” Sometimes we are giving our impossible beauty standard a break and that might be a good thing. We can then celebrate our natural beauty, We are finally not having to “try so hard to be enough”. That is a wonderful thing, but for those women who feel lost without those pieces of their identity, they have been experiencing anxiety or depression because they have let too much go. Maybe in those cases their expectations were not realistic or they forgot to keep their own needs a priority. In those situations you see women saying they are not showering and don’t want to get out of bed. In those cases, it might be time to seek some therapy help.
Relationships are funny things because we can be one version of ourselves when we enter a relationship and yet leave feeling like we have changed (sometimes for the good and at others for the bad). It is always important to have a voice in your relationship. If this is slipping away you can start by sharing the concern with your partner. In healthy relationships we see the other turn “turn toward” our needs (a Gottman concept) and help us. If your partner is dismissive of this, then it might be time to seek the help of a therapist. At play can be things like attachment style or unhealthy beliefs about self that can lead to losing oneself inside of a relationship.
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