What's the Limit Before Enough Is Enough?

How far are you supposed to go for your significant other?  How much are you supposed to do?  Do you keep giving and giving and giving until you have no more to give or do you cut off the “donations” before you’ve reached your breaking point?

Is there ever a time when you just stop giving to the relationship?  Are you allowed to give tough love to a relationship versus continuing to nurture it?

I’ve been giving a lot to my relationship…a lot of love, a lot of attention, a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of effort.  I’ve been giving all of me and all of my emotions to this relationship.  And, frankly, I’m tired.  I’m not tired in terms of wanting to escape, but tired in terms of wanting and needing things to change.  I just don’t know how long I can continue to give and not get much in return.  I want to keep giving—in fact, my love won’t let me stop giving.  But I’m not sure how long my mind and my energy can last.  The continuous donations are taking a toll on my health. 

It’s not that I haven’t gotten anything from the relationship, but recently I’ve been giving a lot more.  And I’m not sure if I’m “supposed” to keep giving or if I should enable him to take care of things himself.   As the man, isn’t he supposed to take care of things and handle his own issues?  I just don’t know how to balance “supporting your mate” with “letting a man be a man.” 

Every time I try to give tough love, the “soft love” in me wants to immediately console him or work to rectify a situation or problem he may be having. 

Is my giving a lot to this relationship my duty as a girlfriend or my way of enabling him?

Relationship Communication 101

Photo by Kriss Szkurlatowski

Does your man make a bad day better or worse?

I think that’s the litmus test for whether you are in a healthy relationship or not—whether he can turn around your bad day or make it even worse.

A man who can make you laugh or take your mind off things is a man who has cracked the code to a woman’s mind.  Because we get inside our own heads a lot and start overthinking things and over analyzing things, and sometimes we need someone to just grab us out of that mental meltdown and bring us back to reality.

But many times men can’t be that hero.  Many times men can’t make you smile in those situations.  In fact, it seems like men have this special power that makes them extra annoying when you’re going through something.  They seem to know just the thing to say that you didn’t want to hear. 

I see it with couples all the time.  The girl is having a bad day and she would rather talk to her mom and a girl friend instead of talking to her boyfriend.  Why? Because testosterone says and does stupid stuff.  And the girl doesn’t want to be bothered with that stupid stuff at that time.

So how do we fix the stupidity?  How do we educate men on what to say and not say on bad days?  Here are a few suggestions of things not to say:

·        “That doesn’t make any sense—why do you feel that way?”

·        “I just don’t understand what’s the big deal.”

·        “You need to calm down.”

·        Any phrase that generalizes or stereotypes women: “you women…”

There are many, many more, but those are the big ones that men should avoid. 

I believe all women should start helping men instead of criticizing them so they can be the men we need them to be on a daily basis, and especially on those not-so-perfect days. 

The Soundtrack of My Life

“I miss you” is the soundtrack to my life right now.  When I wake up in the morning, “I miss you.”  When I come home from work, “I missed you so much today.”  When I go to bed at night, “I really do miss you.” 

This soundtrack had been playing on repeat and I’m getting tired of the tune.  I’m so tired of the “miss yous” and “miss you toos.”  I’m tired of you saying those words to me. 

I resent you for missing me.  Not because I don’t miss you too, but because it makes me feel bad.  Your missing me makes me feel like I should do something about it, like I should solve it, like I should alleviate the hurt that missing me causes you.

At the same time that you are missing me, I am missing you but I’m more concerned about your feelings.  I’m concerned about how you feel and about making sure you don’t feel that way for long.  But what I’m realizing is that my concern is overpowering your concern.  Meaning, you don’t seem to be too concerned about missing me because you aren’t doing anything about it.  You are doing a lot of talking and not a lot of action.

The direct solution to missing someone is to get near that person.  You tell me you miss me so much, but you have yet to do anything about it.

I think we are so used to missing each other that neither one of us knows how to change that.  We know what to do, but not how to do it. 

We need to get out of our comfort zone and start making moves.  We talk about it every day, but stop that conversation when it gets to the part about who is going to move and when they are going to move. 

So what now? 

We will see, but as long as we are just replaying the same song over and over, we will never move to the next playlist of our lives.  

The Love We Share

The fullness of my love is pushing, pulling, pounding, gushing, throbbing, pulsing, rumbling to break through the walls of my heart.  This love is so intense, so rich, so immense that it’s overwhelming.

This love I have for you smoothes out rough edges of our relationship. This love I have for you tunes out the criticism of the critical.  This love I have for you creates a new world for you and me—a world where it’s just you and I.  A world where we don’t have to answer to anyone or apologize for anything.  A world where the issues we have are the ones we create.  Not issues that have been forced upon us due to circumstance, situation or lifestyle. 

This love is a peace maker and a problem solver.  It’s strives to make our world and our relationship without blemish or fault.  It strives for perfection in an imperfect world, for fairness in an unfair world, for purity in an impure world.  This love radiates the love from our relationship onto the rest of the world.  

This love, though separated from its source, is powerful.  It’s strong and its ready to be freed from the constraints around it.  Like a magnet, it will use as much force as necessary to be united with it’s other half. 

The throbbing desire to be reunited is getting more and more intense.  There were many things prohibited the two sources of this love from meeting, but those barriers are getting more and more trivial. 

This love can only manage to be away from its source for so long. 

Looking Back at Single Life

…Single girl life…it’s had many adventures. I had crushes on boys and tried to get them to notice me. I’ve had kisses with random boys and tried to get them to forget me. I’ve had days and weeks of uncertainty: is he going to call? Does he like me as me as I like him? Why did he stop talking to me?

Single girl life brought many adventures, but the adventures I’ve been through since I’ve been in a relationship have been more intense, more meaningful.

This past weekend was no exception. I decided to go to the wedding of an old guy friend by myself. Wrong! There were so many things wrong with that, but I at least I’ve learned for the future:

1)       Never go to weddings by yourself when you are in a committed relationship

Done. The list stops there because that alone was enough. I had a good time at the wedding and I’m glad I went. I just wish I would have brought my boyfriend with me. The wedding was a grand event; I wish he had been there to experience with me.

Not to mention, weddings put you “in the mood.” Whatever that “mood” is, a wedding will get you there quicker. If you are feeling sentimental, a wedding will heighten that. If you are feeling sexual, a wedding will stimulate that. If you are feeling frustrated, a wedding will let you know what exactly is frustrating you.

So why would sexually-frustrated, sappy me go to a wedding by myself? The jury is still out on that one…

But the adventures that ensued because of my decision were very interesting.  I found my hormones wanted to be around any person with a pee-pee and my heart only wanted to be around one pee-pee and he was 1,000 miles away in Atlanta. So my heart and my hormones waged a war this weekend—I’m proud to announce that my heart won out! I made it through the entire wedding without losing my mind, my morals, or my man! 

But why even put myself through that?! Classic rookie mistake—I will never go to a wedding without my significant other again! This was an adventure I do not want to repeat.

Ready to Make THE Move

We are finally doing it—we are finally talking about moving closer to each other. We are finally making the hypothetical, real. 

My long-distance boyfriend and I are embarking on the next phase of our journey. We’ve done long distance for a very long time and we are over it. We are over the fact that we have to miss key events in each other’s lives. We are over the fact that we can’t sit and watch a basketball game together. We are over the fact that we can only see each other once every four weeks. 

Our frustration with our current situation was exacerbated this past weekend when we were able to spend significant time together. We had so much fun together and couldn’t understand why we weren’t able to be together all the time. People move everyday—whatever we have or do in our respective cities, we can find equivalents to in another city. 

So we are over it—we are going to make a change. That change may not be tomorrow, but it will also not be a year from now. We are now doing the things necessary to make that change sooner rather than later. 

“Goodbye”

Goodbye to loneliness

I am alone no more.

Goodbye to confusion

My curiosity will explore.

Goodbye to sadness

I have joy in my life.

Goodbye to heartache

I have no more strife.

Goodbye to the cold

Refuge I have sought.

Goodbye to the hate

Love has been bought.

Goodbye to the anger

There is peace within.

Goodbye to forever

I have you till the end.

We have finally come to the point where we are willing to sacrifice our current situations in order to make room for a better situation with each other. We always wanted to make the leap, but were never mentally ready to do so...we are finally there!

Far Beyond "Love"

I wish there were a word for how I feel about you right now. I wish there were some way for me to express these intense feelings I have inside. I wish there were some way for you to know my heart, see my heart, feel my heart—I want you to totally understand the love I have for you. 

But it’s not just love...it goes beyond love. It goes beyond the overused term of affection. “Love” is not enough. “Love” is the word I’ve been using to express my feelings for you. Somehow, that word now doesn’t seem as relevant, as important, as powerful. That word has lost its edge. 

I need a word to express the feeling of warmth and comfort that fill my spirit when I’m near you. A word to express the feeling of pure excitement and glee when something good happens to you. A word that expresses the stuttering of my heart when you look at me a certain way. 

I need a word that expresses that I don’t ever want to leave your side. I love you. But it’s more than that. I adore you, I understand you, I know you, I feel you, I see you. I see who you are. I see who you will become. I see the man you’ve become and are still becoming, and I like that person. 

There’s not one word to communicate all the feelings I have filling up my heart.  But there are ways for me to show you and that’s what I want to do more of. I want to show you that you are the only man for me. I want to show you that you are constantly on my mind. I want to show you that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. 

What I’m learning on my journey toward developing our relationship is that the only way for me to truly express how I feel for you is through actions…so that’s what I’m going to do!