Faith vs. Foolishness

Faith. How much should you believe in a relationship before you decide it’s too much?  Should you continue to walk blindly toward an end goal that is not visible?  When do we know when it’s time to turn around and walk the other way in order to avoid falling off the ledge?

I feel like I’m dangerously close to the ledge, but every time I go to take another step closer, I somehow have solid ground to walk on.  Every time I feel like I’m at my breaking point, I get renewed energy and renewed love that enables me to continue on the journey.

I’m just not sure how long the ground will hold up—how long will I be able to endure this uncertainty.  Each day, each moment in our relationship is uncertain, unknown.  We know we still want to be together, but we don’t know when is it time to take the next step, when should we move to the same city, how long will our current situation last, and so on.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, and that scares me.  BUT the fact that I’m willing to stick around to see what’s on tap for tomorrow brings him certainty.  The fact that I’m willing to go with the flow and jump through any and all hoops in order to make our relationship work makes him feel secure.

I also feel secure in him but insecure in our situation; which is where the faith comes in. 

I just need to balance faith with foolishness.  I don’t want to believe so much in the relationship that I’m missing something right in front of my face. 

Like they say, "Love is blind."  I just hope this blind love doesn’t cause me to fall…

Patiently Waiting

My boyfriend and I are playing the waiting game. We are waiting for something to happen, waiting to make a move, waiting for a sign. 

We are waiting for someone or something to let us know that it is okay for us to uproot our lives to be together. We have the love, but that doesn’t seem to be enough. 

Love is enough to make us travel 500 miles every month to see each other. Love is enough to meet each other’s families and friends. Love is enough to make future plans together. But love isn’t enough to make us confident that taking the first step toward those future plans is a good idea. We want it to be a good idea. We want to live our lives together. We want to live in the same city, but we also want to be sure that it’s the right thing to do.

One would think love would be enough. My heart wants to believe that it is, but my mind is skeptical. My mind is skeptical because it looks around and sees a lot of people who were once “in love” and are now “in court.” Apparently, love has an expiration date on it and I just want to make sure ours doesn’t spoil.   

So that’s why we are waiting. We don’t want to prematurely make a decision that we can’t take back. We want to make sure it’s right without it necessarily being “perfect.” Because no situation will ever be perfect, there will always be reasons why it won’t be a good time for either one of us to move. However, there will be a “right” time. 

There will be a time when it will feel right for us to stop waiting and start moving; but until that time comes…

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock…

Forgive, Forget and Move On?

It’s funny how relationships have ups and downs, highs and lows and yet they usually seem to balance themselves back out. It doesn’t always happen overnight; it might take some planning, some working, some talking, and some fighting; but eventually the world makes sense again. 

Today, all is right with the world. Today, there is harmony again. Today, we are back to neutral. Today, everything is OK.

Yesterday, we could have been screaming, fighting, yelling, arguing—but that was yesterday. I don’t need to worry about the problems of yesterday because they have been resolved today. The relationship has balanced itself back out and is now back to neutral.

But should that be the case? Should couples really negate everything that happened in the past because today is better? Should we really act like what happened yesterday didn’t matter because we don’t want to be reminded of it today?

Or do we need that reminder? Do we need to take note of the issues of yesterday so they aren’t repeated today and tomorrow? 

The issues my boyfriend and I had yesterday have been resolved in terms of neither one of us being angry anymore, but they have not been solved in terms of enabling the issue to not come up again. But by remembering the issues of yesterday, we may work to solve them tomorrow.

So I think that’s the key.  Don’t let your past issues distract you from moving forward, but at the same time, don’t let them disappear momentarily only to resurface as a bigger issue in the future. 

Relationships do have a way of balancing themselves out, but I’d rather just have a steady, “balanced” relationship versus trying to re-balance it every day.

Today, the world makes sense—I’m going to try to keep it that way!

Needing My Partner In My Relationship

I’m over it. I’m over him saying one thing and doing another. Or better yet, saying one thing and not doing anything at all.

Just when I think we’ve made progress in our relationship and moving toward doing what is best for the relationship, something happens that pushes us further apart. And I can’t help but think he is the culprit–I can’t help but think he is pushing us apart. He is not intentionally being destructive to our relationship, but ignorantly. He doesn’t know that his apathy is sabotaging us. 

But intentional or not, I’ve reached my breaking point.  Something must change—his apathy is affecting my happiness.

He rarely follows through with what he says he’s going to do and when he does follow through, it’s only because I’ve asked and reminded him three or four times. He does not take action until something bad has already happened. 

I am over it.

The lack of action and “extra” in our relationship is leading to the demise of the relationship.  You can’t sustain a healthy relationship if you aren’t feeding it and nurturing it.  He and I go on day after day doing the same old things.  We do not add any pizzazz or spice to the relationship.  The relationship is getting boring and we need something to bring us out of our funk, because…

I am over it!

I’m to blame as well; I understand that. But I cannot do something about the relationship by myself. I need help. I want his help. I want him to be by my side, to be my partner. 

I want us to be in it together. 

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.