"What was I thinking?" Come on now, admit it, we've all been there. Recently, I experienced a break-up...if you keep up with my blogs, you already know this. If you're one of my Facebook friends or followers, you probably know that we got back together this past weekend. We finally talked Sunday after two months of us both refusing to call one another and sat down and figured out what we each really wanted. It's kind of ironic when you consider that Sunday was the one year anniversary of our first date. I didn't realize it until he updated our status back into a relationship to state June 1st. I went back to last year's calendar and figured out the actual dates. Not that the actual dates are a big deal for me, but just the irony made it stick out to me. Of course, this isn't really about the irony, but the fact that we broke up in the first place.
Let's face it a LOT of relationship advice columnists make it sound like it's supposed to be all fabulous, all the time, magic, magic, magic. I don't like those idiots. I've observed for years many of my friends that are happily married. It's not all friggin' sugar and spice. So yes, I'm confident in calling most relationship columnists, especially internet and chick mag ones, morons. My son is the one that woke me up (previous blog) that I should definately not be taking advice from idiots. I kept telling myself if Chris wasn't going to call me then it was over. I mean if you can't talk to someone, share what's going on, and work through it together, from experience and observation, it's time to throw in the towel and give up. I'll be quite honest, not like I haven't said it in a blog before, I'm not really one to put up with any crap and I'm not going to stick around for it. Advice columnists love someone like me. I'm proof of their theories that it's supposed to be some fairy tale ending. Soulmates are never supposed to argue, disagree, etc. and they follow each other around like puppy dogs. Romeo and Juliet type stuff. Well, Romeo and Juliet killed themselves. That's not love or romance--that's therapy stuff right there. Possibly even rubber room stuff, or given the time frame when the play was written, serious mental defects from too much inbreeding. It's not a love story; it's a tragedy. Likewise, taking advice from someone that really doesn't know your situation is as bad as potluck dinners where the only thing anyone brought was vegetable trays. They really don't know you or your significant other so their advice is missing the meat and potatoes.
With the way things were going though, I was more confused than I had ever been. What had sparked our break-up? Well, yes, I felt like he was pushing me away, but I wasn't sure I hadn't been doing the same. Maybe it had contributed, but honestly, when my friends asked why from my needs and wants the only thing I could come up with was a motorcycle. Not mine. His. He kept saying he wanted one, but I wasn't sure if it was because of me or because of his own desire for one. I know he had talked about getting one before we met, but I was grossly concerned that he was going to change for me. It's always a bad idea to change for someone else. First of all, I didn't like the idea of him changing for me. I like Chris for who he is and have no desire whatsoever to change him into someone else. It frankly scared me. If someone changes for me, and I've had guys do this in the past, it usually becomes a state of contention later. Chris kept the idea of a motorcycle in spite of our break-up and even fell in love with a particular Harley model. Not sure about his choice from the on the back point of view (friggin' V-Rod), but it's his bike and as already stated, I'm not trying to change anything. I have my own and I'm perfectly content riding my own. In my concern, added with some poor timing of events for both of us, I had expressed fears and frustration to him that sparked his own fears and frustration. We had been very happy and I think we were both waiting for the ball to drop. Our break-up was created by our own fears. My advice to my son had been not to let your fears of what happened in the past or in mine or his dad's or anyone else's relationships be the determining factor in his. Yet, when it came right down to it, that's what I did.
What caused the break-up for him? Well, I can't really tell you that, not because I don't know, but because it's not my place to share his thoughts. Chris was what I had always "wanted". I never made a list or itemized the things that I wanted. I just knew there were certain things that I wouldn't tolerate and certain things that were requirements. For example, I'm a very deep thinker, understand a lot of concepts, enjoy a good debate and love to experience new things. Amazingly, finding all of these qualities in another person is pretty difficult. My best female friend (because Chris really is my best friend) and I share the first three. To some degree she likes new things, but not even close to the level that I do. The things that I didn't want--abusive, cruel, mean, cheater....these words are not Chris. I could dwell on his mistakes, my mistakes, everything that went wrong. It's also not really my style. What I do know is that an honest relationship is what we had, we had some life events that caused a rupture, and we managed to recover.
I'm thinking that's an important lesson. Somehow. I've broken up with someone before and then got back together. When we got back together, there was a deep insincerity, something phony about it. Really couldn't explain it better than that. In this case, both of us want this, both of us realize and have talked about what went wrong, how we handled it, and why it blew up. We also talked about why it took so long to fix and what hurdles and how those hurdles were created. Chris told me next time he does something stupid like this to "punch" him in the mouth. I told him no but that I am going to say "WTF?" I'm not expecting that there won't be a next time, but I am expecting that we will work through it together and without the possibility of losing our best friends. My advice, for what it's worth to others looking, giving up, whatever, when it's the "right" relationship it's not going to have to be forced, but it's going to have to work for both people. Most important, communication and honesty. I never based any relationship on lies or manipulation or deceit. I've known people that have--in fact, a couple of the relationships I've been in have been based on deceit by the other person. If a relationship starts with deceit, it ends with that deceit. Chris and I started as two honest people looking for the right relationship. We found it, we found out it's worth fighting for (so to speak), and that once your best friend is your lover too you don't throw it away because you got scared.
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