The biggest advantage that came out of canceling my first wedding was that when the next opportunity came around I’d have the chance to plan another one. With the help of PINTEREST!
Dreaming Up Drama: Can Nightmares Impact Your Relationship?
Why Hello There, It Looks Like I’m Back (Again)
It has been approximately one year and nine months since my last post. And three years since anything resembling consistency. But, now I’m back. After a little bit of prodding from my husband. Yep. I betrayed my single angst and settled down with guy. He’s keen. There’s no anger issues, drug-related baggage or employment challenges. (What a bore.)
Unwitting Surrender
Blocked & Breakups
I thought when my relationship ended, so would my writer’s block. Well it never really was writer’s block, just more respect for the individual I was sharing my days with for awhile. But it seems to have just gotten worse. Maybe it’s because it’s not really over for me yet. (Yes I know. I’m stupid, crazy, deluded, enter similar adjective here.) Maybe I just need time to decompress. Whatever it may be I’m going to force a post in hopes of restarting the rusty word processor.
I’m Baaack Or At Least Some Version of Me Is
It’s official. I’m that girl. The one who abandons all her (imaginary) friends when she gets a boyfriend. I didn’t really want to abandon you. Things just got so busy and… The truth of the matter is writing a blog about being single, dating and relationships is a bit of a challenge when you’re in a relationship. Especially when the blog is ostensibly unfiltered. I was faced with pushing out disingenuous posts or revealing too much about someone who wasn’t choosing to have his worst qualities broadcasted on the Internet. (Because let’s face it, no one wants to read about how sweet, cute, talented someone’s boyfriend is. We want dirt!) Plus, given my reactionary nature and the way I use writing to work through my frustrations, I would likely want to take back 75 percent of the posts the day after they were published. Especially the one entitled “Pick Up Your Socks: A Tale of Why My Boyfriend is the Worst Human Being On The Planet.”
Too Much Togetherness
Among the many not-so-loveable patterns I repeat in my relationships is my desire to spend every spare moment with the snugglebear in my life. Probably because I go so long between snugglebears that I have to squeeze in as much as I can to catch up. I caught myself doing this again with the boy of the moment this past weekend. We had essentially spent the entire weekend together, so he declined my invitation to share a lovely Sunday with me. My instinctual reaction was to get butthurt and conclude that he chose not to spend time with me because he hated me with the fire of a thousand angry suns.
Crazymaking, Gaslighting and General Assholery
After I split with my fiancé for the final time, I spent weeks of therapy learning that I wasn’t (am not) crazy. The real eye-opener was this book. It read like a narration of the entire demented year and a half. It was then that I recognized the gaslighting that was going on inside of my relationship. Evans named it crazy-making, but the concept is exactly the same. He (or she) dismisses what you’re feeling or thinking as a dysfunction of your personality or entire gender in order to control the situation and, ultimately, you.
Religion, Dating & Finding Out I Can’t Remain Detached
I’ve dated on nearly every point along the Western religion spectrum from atheist to spiritual-ish to Jesus freak. In theory, if a guy hates Jesus, it should be a deal breaker for me. But I’ve blurred the lines on that rule, probably one time too many. For the most part it hasn’t been a major problem in the early stages. Mostly due to a mutual respect for what the other individual believes. Healthy conversations can be had without turning into conversion attempts or all-out arguments. Much like a friendship on the same plane. Except, unlike friendships, you may have to raise a child with this individual so that can be a problem down the road.
A Mistake I Have to Make
As growing and evolving human beings our lives are strung together by a series of lessons we’ve learned from mistakes we’ve made and sworn never to repeat again. But for some of us (hopefully there is an “us” and I’m not completely alone in my shame) there are mistakes we knowingly repeat and can never explain our motives to the satisfaction of anyone with half an ounce of common sense. The routinely revisited error is a difficult one to comprehend. There are a slew of quotes floating around the universe pontificating on the absurdity of reverting back to old missteps.