My Blah-Blah-Blog

So what happened to them you may be wondering…

Well, we broke it off, again. I guess I did more of the breaking off.

It hurt like hell. He didn’t see it as me trying to save both of us from heartache, he just thought I’m being selfish because I want too much.

I don’t think I’m being selfish. I’m giving him the chance to find the right one, too.

If I had a nickel for every time I wished this would work out, I would have a nice savings account. But I’m not too silly not to know when it’s time to walk away.

I’m doing it because I love him and want the best for him.

And I love myself too.

And so I put on my big girl pants, and I walk away.

It makes my chest tight. It makes me feel nauseated in my heart (is that even possible!?!? Yes.) I walk away knowing that he’ll find someone else and it will be perfect and it hurts because it wasn’t me.

But that seems to be the trend lately. Ugh.

I try to keep my hopes up that maybe, maybe somewhere out there is a man whose heart is set the same way mine is, who sees a relationship as a stepping stone to something more, who knows he wants to share his life with someone else, and will choose me to be that person. He’s not afraid of it, for whatever reason.

But you know I won’t get my hopes up too high. And I definitely won’t get excited about it. That’s just my way of doing things.

PS a note to all you women – appreciate your man if you have one, k?

PPS a note to all you wannabe Bridezillas, stop being bitches. You’re ruining it for the rest of us.

I hope I’ve proved my point that I’ve never been the wannabe Bridezilla, I’ve never manipulated, forced or coerced anyone into marrying me. I’ve never stomped around demanding expensive baubles for my left ring finger, none of the nonsense I’ve seen many women do.

I did get caught up in the prospect, I did allow myself to think it through and share my feelings and thoughts by a respectful and open boyfriend.

But after realizing that the two of us are on different planets when it comes to the WHEN of it all, I know when it’s time to walk away. And I’m doing it for the good of TWO not just one.

So it distresses me, hurts me, makes me feel pretty damn sad, when I hear things (and by hear things I mean read facebook posts) that refer to women as only wanting long-term commitments, or all women want is everything you’ve got (a man).

Seriously?

Since when did wanting a family become a bad thing in today’s society? What is with all these men who run as fast as they can when a woman acts like a woman? (Hey don’t you get me wrong, many women don’t want to ever be married and/or have a family. That’s cool. I get it.) I’m talking about the women who grew up wanting a family, a woman who sees a husband as a wonderful lovely thing to have in her life.

Why are so many men bashing marriage and commitment? “Don’t do it” they say. “She’s after your soul” “She’s after your money” “She’s trying to trap you”. Are you FECKING KIDDING ME!?!?

I’m sorry that loving you enough to commit my life to you is going after your soul. I’m sorry that I want to have what a lot of other normal and healthy people have – but to you that means I want to trap you. Or that I’m after your money.

It makes me sad.

I have to say it’s no wonder. With divorce rates out of control and single parents everywhere, generations are losing the GOOD part of what it means to be married. And those who are stuck in bad marriages – because they really did let themselves be trapped by a manipulative man or woman – are bitter about it and think they’re doing a service to single folks. I have news for you. Shutthehellup because you are the one who let it happen. If you didn’t want it or weren’t ready for it, you should have walked away dumbass. Don’t act all macho now because you are embarrassed that you let yourself get into this mess.

Kids don’t know what it means to have two parents in the same house anymore, so what was norm for the past few generations is now foreign to new generations.

What was taboo not quite 40 years ago (living together) is okay now. I support living together before getting married. Heck, I support living together even if you aren’t thinking of getting married. It works better logistically and it saves everyone money.

But the point is, you are still TOGETHER. You are still building a bond between the two of you. Ever have a new friend that after a sleepover was your new bestie? Imagine what it’s like in a love relationship between two people. I really do believe God intended for us to be with someone. Whether it’s one someone or ten in a lifetime, we certainly weren’t meant to be alone.

So here’s my final point.

If you don’t want to get married – not now or not ever – I respect that. It’s cool. I’m glad you know what you want when you want it.

But don’t, DO NOT date someone (and by date I mean an intimate relationship with someone for many months) who does want to get married – now or in the near future (or in the later future). It’s not fair to them.

If you do want to get married – now or in the future – I respect that.

But don’t, DO NOT date someone who does not want to get married. It’s not fair to them.

Perhaps you should both be adults about it and move on. And neither of you should make rude comments about the other because of their own personal desires. It’s not necessary. It hurts the other person. It makes you look foolish and shallow.

When I was younger, I learned the lesson of “Don’t get excited too soon” and “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”  Ever tormented by the “We’ll see” response from my mom on whether or not I could have a sleepover, attend a function, go somewhere, I would get all excited as I anticipated a “yes” response. Those were few and far between however, and it wasn’t long that I learned not to anticipate or expect anything. It was a lot easier to not deal with the disappointment all the time – that high to low crash. And when a “yes” did finally come, it was almost even better, but by the time I was almost out of high school, I’d managed to suppress my feelings so much that even getting to do something I wanted to do became an anticlimactic event.

Here I am in my adult life and I’m pretty much the same. I’ve learned to shut down my emotions for the most part because of dealing with so much negativity for a very long time. I don’t get excited about much nowadays because I know there’s always a chance for something to fall through or not work out or people to bail on you. It happens, it’s life. I’m not a Debby Downer, I just don’t like to be disappointed.

When I started dating this great guy a little more than a year ago, I realized that while he and I fit into all the cutesy relationship molds of fitting together: he was the yin to my yang, we fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, we’re two birds of a feather etc etc, there was one big problem. I want a traditional family. I’d like to be married and enjoy the wonderment that is two souls coming together to love each other forever and grow old together. I’d like to have a baby with said mate, joining the two of us together in a new little person.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with feelings like that. It’s how men and women were created, to want someone else, to be with someone else. Regardless of your views of marriage, there are still a lot of people in the world who want to have that other someone in their life in a commitment of experiencing life together.

Well, that’s not what he wants, at least not right now. And, being the sensible person that I am, I didn’t get all bent out of shape about it. I did have my own little time of turmoil of wondering if I should stick to the relationship just because we were so damn good together. But after a while, thoughts that I was second guessing myself crept in. I started to feel like while this guy was probably the closest thing to my Mr. Right that I would ever get, maybe I was missing someone else at the same time, someone who shared the same desires that I had.

I let him know what I wanted in life, and he let me know what he wanted. After quite some time of considering and talk of ending our relationship, and actually doing so for a whopping 24 hours, I decided that I loved this man more than I had ever loved anyone, and I’d rather spend some time with him – as much as possible – than to walk off without him and have nothing.

I decided that I’d give up or put on hold the things I wanted: a family unit.  After all, I could never push him into something he didn’t want or wasn’t ready for. I knew I was taking a big risk by giving up my own desires: doing that in the past got me stuck in an unhealthy and unsafe relationship, and it caused a lot of damage. But this was different – this guy, while selfish in many ways (and I mean putting self first, not Scrooge-like or uncaring for others) was not going to intentionally inflict harm or pain on me. He just wasn’t giving up on what he wanted.

I could wait for him to change his mind and maybe in a few years if we were still together then he and I would be on the same page for our lives, but the risks here are obvious. What if he changes his mind about ME? What if I’M not on the same page anymore? What if I can’t have any more children? So many what if’s were scary for me, but after spending a good almost 10 years alone, I didn’t want to lose the happiness that he brought to my life NOW.

We got back together again, but part of my heart was hurt and broken. Subconsciously I felt rejected and uncared for because I was willing to sacrifice for our relationship but he wasn’t, nor did he seem to notice or care that I would give up so much for him.

This became a huge burden for me to keep to myself, but as I always do, I shoved my emotions deep down inside and ignored them, and I forced myself to only look at the good times of the relationship.

Throughout our whole dating experience, I never was the girl who would drop hints (or make outright demands) that we get married. 3, 6, 9 and 12-month anniversaries came and went and I never expected that he’d surprise me with a confession of his undying love for me. I never expected that he’d choose me to be his one and only, I never expected that he’d love me the way I loved him and saw me as the rest of who he was.

I was never that girlfriend, and I tried to love and accept him for what he was, and where he was in life, too.

But something has to give when all you do is give to everyone else in life, and one day you realize that you’ve neglected yourself for so long that you don’t know who you are. And when that time comes in the midst of losing a job and dealing with other not-so-normal stresses, you realize that you don’t have the energy to keep all these people happy all the time, feeling like you’re getting not much in return.

I felt like he was getting his cake and eating it too. I felt like I was keeping nothing for myself, but giving all away. I felt like I was cheating myself out of the life I truly wanted and I also felt like I was doing a disservice to my children, who were a constant source of strain on our relationship since he was not used to kids and saw them as an an interruption and nuisance to our relationship.

So we had yet another one of our talks, or maybe it was an email. I’m not sure what happened, but I decided that this just wasn’t working out because after 13 months of dating, we couldn’t progress.

He wanted to be with me as often as possible, he wanted every benefit that a woman would give a husband – but yet we can’t get a place together, we can’t do things with the kids because it makes him uncomfortable, we can’t talk about what getting married would look like because – in his tongue in cheek manner – he’d say that I was after his soul (and his money ha ha isn’t that funny).

It just didn’t make sense to play house with someone who wanted to play house but didn’t want to play house. Yeah you read that right.

So we ended it. He went out of town for a few days and we didn’t see each other or talk much.

Then, he surprised me.

It’s happened to all of us I’m sure: breaking-up. I broke up with my first beau in kindergarten, but we exchanged fat pencils and were still friends after all was said and done. My most recent (and probably most painful) just happened within a week.

So, how ’bout you? Gotta make it through a tough break-up? It’s possible to do, even though right now you probably feel like climbing into a hole and crying your eyes out for the rest of your life. I know I do.

Just take a deep breath and from here on out think with your head more than you think with your heart. And maybe take in a little of what I have to say.

First of all, remember that a relationship – romantic or otherwise – is based on emotions.  It only stands to reason that all of the emotional buildup and bliss and romantic giddy feelings leading to your relationship has to come down the other side of the hill. It’s painful, heart-wrenching, and it hurts oh-so-bad. This is one of the times in life where you really have to buckle down, prepare yourself for the torrent of emotions that are going to come up (and may be worse on some days more than others). I gotta repeat a concept for you here: you absolutely have GOT to do your best to think everything through with your head to get through this! You cannot rely on emotions to define your reality.

The next important thing to remember is this: be mature about the break-up. Sure, your feelings are probably hurt. You may be really mad at your new ‘ex’. But listen: it wasn’t so long ago that you loved this person (and probably still do). Remember the good things about your ex, the things that made you enjoy their company and your relationships. Don’t focus on how or why you broke up. The fact is, none of those things matter now as you walk through this initial phase of your break-up. Honestly, thinking about the negatives will only hurt you and draw out the process. Trying to figure out the why or the how of the breakup could set you back: you will want to try to get him or her back even though you’ve reached the conclusion that you shouldn’t be together, or you may manipulate your ex to take you back just so you don’t have to experience this pain (or allow yourself to be manipulated!).

Along the lines of being mature, don’t bad-mouth your ex, regardless of what he or she has done. Take the higher road and leave it be. Any potential future dates don’t want to hear you badmouth your current ex. He or she may take that as a big red flag. Avoid the drama, let it go. Stop contacting your ex, even if it’s an amicable split. This doesn’t have to be permanent, but you really do need a few days to get all of these emotions out of your system!

And lastly, take some time to let those emotions out. Cry a few nights in a row, be sad about whatever you want to be sad about: the loss of the relationship, loss of a friendship, all the good memories you had. You may feel like you’ll never love anyone this much ever again. You may feel rejected, betrayed, angry. Allow each emotion to surface, take a look at why you think you’re experiencing it, and let it be for a few minutes. Trying to stuff your emotions to just move on may help you for the short-term, but in the long-run it will reach a potentially explosive level and you might find yourself having a melt-down in the middle of the grocery store or at work.

Oh there’s so much about life that is good and bad. Take the bad in stride and look for what else is out there that is good. More on that in follow-up posts.

Sad today? Find something that brings you joy and go do it. Have lunch with a friend, do some retail therapy, go for a jog. Make sure it’s something that you really enjoy and can do without pining or wistful thinking.

*hugs*