Relationship 101

Question: How much can happen in one 24 hour period? 

Answer: A LOT

It might not be too much to say that Friday was a turning point in my life.  Not only as a new beginning point for a relationship that needs to be nurtured, but also as a new way of thinking and understanding -- on both ends.  We were honest and open, and let go of a lot of resentment, anger, disappointment and frustration.  This was the most communication we have ever had about our relationship, and possibly about anything, ever.  Once we got talking, we couldnt stop.  I was surprised at how easy it was to talk about all the things that I was always so nervous or scared to address.  He answered all my questions with conversation, not just a yes or no answer.  He elaborated on every topic I brought up, we talked about everything from the kids to love to annoyances that we had with the other person.  It was eye-opening, and felt extremely freeing to finally get everything out into the open.

We went to a lake close to my house, the trail that I did a lot of my marathon training on, and it seemed to be the perfect setting for our conversation -- a good balance of unfamiliar surroundings, to keep us objective, and forward movement, to keep the communication flowing.  I spent a lot of time listening, something I think I havent been so good at in the past.  He spent a lot of time talking, something he hasnt been so good at in the past.  It was so easy.

It seems so silly that we've been so bad at this communication thing, because it seems to come so easily to us.  If I had to pinpoint one thing that lead to the downfall of our relationship, it would be this.  And yet, it seemed to flow so openly yesterday.  So much so, that we promised to repeat our walk around the lake once a week, or however many times it takes, so that we can maintain the open lines of communication until it no longer becomes difficult.

At the end of the day, in an attempt to put some physical significance to our discussion, we took some paper and wrote down all our grievances and our emotional baggage from the relationship in the past, with the intention of letting it go.  So we took turns reading ours aloud, then crumpled each one up and tossed it into the lake, one-by-one.  Some got tossed further than others, some I wanted to drop kick, but, in the end, we let it all go and agreed to start over.  Together!

The relationship between him and I is never going to be easy.  We both have a lot of issues we need to address individually, and a lot of areas we need to continue to work on together, but hard work is a requirement for anything that is worth doing.  A relationship is no different.  I think people underestimate how much work goes into a strong relationship, its a lot of give and take, and I think that we've both finally realized that.  :)  We need to accept eachother, good and bad, not try to change the person, but compromise to reach common ground.

With that said, tho, I think there are still a few gray areas we need to address before I can officially list us as "together".  With so much confusion that has mounted in the past, I just want to recap the day and make sure we are both on the same page.  We talked about SO many things, I want to be sure we didnt forget something or misinterpret anything.  Communication is going to be key here, and I want to start it out on the right foot!  I cant wait to talk to him today!

Day 48

My mind is racing tonight.  I am hopeful that tomorrow will bring some answers, a new beginning or some closure.

I am still torn between the decision to make.  Either way, I lose a part of me that I love -- but gain a part of me that will be so great!

Day 47

I saw a quote on the internet today, some article I was reading on relationships -- seems to be my only source of internet browsing these days -- but it was:


"As men grow older, the poet Donald Justice wrote, men should 'learn to close softly the doors to rooms they will not be coming back to.'  Whats left behind in those rooms?  The unlimited options and possibilities we love to contemplate.  The certainty you're looking for, comes only after the door is shut."


This really made me sit back and think.  So many times in life we are looking for signs that things are right.  The right timing, the right outfit, the right job, the right relationship, the certainty that everything is in its place and is how its supposed to be.  But, are we ever really sure?  It might not be until things are not so right, that you actually realize how right they were when you were so uncertain.  The certainty comes only after the door is shut ...


This makes me think.

Game Plan:

Ok, so I need a game plan for Friday.  So many thing have been running through my head this weekend.  Things about the importance of certain times in our relationship, and those that I viewed as important, but in retrospect, were more trivial than anything else.  I am caught between his words that he wrote me on that terrible night weeks ago, and the promise that we can work through this, and with time, that we can grow this into a loving, lasting, working relationship.  Something that is real, not just made up in my head.  But I wonder if he is ready to love me as much as I want to love him -- Can he give me the support and commitment I need?  Can I give him the time and patience he needs to find that love?


Its interesting.  I remember when he was away, we would continuously pat ourselves on the back and talk about how what we had was a real, grow-up relationship, one that worked and was healthy.  But looking back, that was just not the case.  Its easy to be considerate and kind and not get upset about stupid everyday stuff when someone is not there all the time.  Its when they come back, and ARE around, that shit hits the fan.  Thats when you find out if things are "real" and "grown-up" and that is really when the whole "healthy" part can be determined.  We never had that.  I dont think our relationship ever fell into that whole "healthy" category.  We thought that we had already finished the race when we were still standing at the starting line.  I wonder if we can mesh our lives together?  We've never done that.  I dont know if he really knows how ... not in a bad way, just in the way that hes never done it before.  He has absolutely no experience with it, ever, in his adult life (and I was not a very good teacher).  Hes never had to coordinate schedules and consider another persons feelings when he makes plans.  Then you throw in the kids, and -- my God, no wonder he wanted to run the opposite direction!?  Its like the blind leading the blind here.  We're both terrible at this!


Hes terrible at being in a relationship in just the opposite way as me.  All Ive ever known was how to be in a relationship, a long-term committed relationship.  I dont know how to separate myself from that long-term objective and the dating-phase-we-dont-know-yet thing.  Ive been married since I was 21, I had been with the same guy for 5 years prior to getting married to him.  I dont know what im doing, I dont know how to do it, and I sure as hell have failed quite a few times.  


Learning experiences.  


So now im just depending on me, and the talk with him.  We need to straighten a lot of things out, we need to get a lot of stuff on the table and sort through, organize ... and shred before he and I can move on at all.  Whether I want that or not ... Do I want to be with him?  Maybe -- but I feel like I might always be looking over my shoulder waiting for him to abandon me again, I feel like his words are tattooed on my back and will remain there for a long while before they fade, if they ever do.  Can a relationship so fragile and beaten-down survive with those things looming over our heads?  Do I want that for myself?  Do I want that for him?  It seems like more questions just keep spewing out of my mouth!  Has enough time passed?  Has the door been closed long enough for him to realize what he had?  For me to realize what I had, and to respect it, and not try to smother it? 


The only way I'll ever know is to talk to him, and possibly let go, I mean, TRULY let go of a lot of anger, resentment, broken promises and expectations that never came to light.  As bad as this sounds, a lot of that is going to depend on how much he can shed light on a lot of things that went wrong.  How much he can open up to me and, for lack of a better word, prove to me that he is ready to man up.  I am just dying to know his perspective and what he has learned.  I really am ready, and part of me is excited (the other part of me is terrified), to tell him everything that I have learned.  To breathe a big sigh of relief and just let everything out.  For me, this will be freeing.

6 weeks out (Day 42)

All's well that end's well, right?

Sometimes I get myself into a tizzy because of tiny details, things he did say (or write) things he didnt say (or write).  Sometimes I think im my own worst enemy.  The day after I received that vague email, he sent me another email with exact times and days that he was avail to get together. He said that he didnt want to give me any dates until he knew what his schedule was for sure.  With me, I think I have learned that no information is better than vague information.  Im definitely going to have to pass this tip along to those I meet along the way.

So, we had lunch today.  This was after a very short, but sweet txt message conversation yesterday.  Out of the blue, he sends me a text message saying that he was going through his camera and he found some pictures of me, apparently, that I had taken "for him"!?  Me, having the worlds worst memory, didnt remember these pics at all, I couldnt even recall when about they would have been taken ... at any rate, we bantered back and forth about it for a good 30 minutes.  It was short sweet and lightened things up a bit.  Sometimes I do tend to be a little too serious.  He really makes me realize that life doesnt have to be SO dramatic ALL the time.  Even if im in the worst of moods, he can make me crack a smile -- i used to get SO mad at him when he would do this, but now I appreciate the reasoning behind it.  That is his way of bringing me back down to earth when I am on some crazy rampage, its his way of calming me, and the situation, down.  The one thing I have learned through all this is that I take myself too seriously.  Every decision doesnt have to be make or break, every situation doesnt have to be do or die.  

Back to lunch.  I was surprised that I was so freakin nervous as I made my way there!?  That really caught me off guard, because I DONT get nervous about that kind of stuff, but I guess I didnt really know what to expect.  And there is just so much history between us ... and to be honest, I am scared to death that I am going to get hurt again.  So -- what am I doing?  Why am I meeting him for lunch?  Am I taking steps backwards?  Am I trying to get back together with him?  Can he be the man who is ready to be there for me, to step up?  Am I ready to relax and not rush things so much?  Can we let go of our constant power struggle and learn to live as a couple and give up our selfish behavior?  I honestly dont know, but I think thats the point of this whole "talk" day.  To find out where we are, and what we want.

My perspective has really changed since my trip to San Fran.  I feel like I have a lot to offer and I feel like he never appreciated any of it, at least not in the time hes been home.  I feel like I deserve more and this time, I *REALLY* feel it.  For the first time I feel like if we didnt get back together I would be ok.  That is a huge place for me to come to.  In the 6 weeks we've been apart, I have learned so much about what I want, what I need, what I deserve ... and what I did wrong.  Its funny tho, when I see him, my heart just jumps out of my chest, a huge ridiculous smile comes across my face and I want to stay with him.  Is it bad that I wish he would come over this weekend and spend more time with me?  Anyway, lunch was good!  As soon as I saw him, all my nerves were gone and that familiar goofy smile rolled across my face, and didnt leave for the entire lunch.  We ate pizza, talked about how things were going in our lives, I told him stories of Napa and things that have happened since the break -- we even talked a little bit about our so-called "dating" life.  Ha!  But, most of all, I was just really happy to see him and be with him.  His hair was longer and actually had a little bit of a style to it, his smile, tho, was the exact same.  He has the best smile I have ever seen. *sigh  At one point, we got into this line of questions where he was talking about things that hes missed out on, in life in general b/c of being over seas.  So I asked him what he missed about being over seas.  His answer: me.  He said he missed going on vacation with me and waiting for me to get there, that the only time he came back to the states was to see me.  This is true.  In the 6 years he was over seas, he never came home, except when he met me -- then he was home all the time.  It shocked me that of all the things he could have remembered about being over seas, I would be the thing that stands out.  He might have just been trying to play to my emotions, or he may have just said that to convey the fact that I was an important part of his life at one point.  Either way, whether true or not, it was really sweet. 

We set a date to have our "talk".  1 week from today, next Fri.  I am excited to see how it all plays out.  Like I said, at this point, I could honestly be happy either way -- and that is a good place to be!

Day 40

Wow.  How much a week and a weekend away can change your perspective ... I highly recommend it if you are going through a similar situation!  I got back on Monday from my girls weekend in San Fran.  What surprised me was how much I *didnt* think about him while I was away.  


Before I left, a few emails were exchanged and I even ended up going over to his house after I received a reply from him that was particularly heartfelt.  It really caught be me by surprise when he wrote: "so i'm sorry for not being there for you when we were in a relationship, and i'm sorry for trying to be there for you when we weren't."


For whatever reason, this sentence along with others similar to it, really pulled me into this emotional spiral where I felt like I needed to go to him and see him.  So I did.  I left work, drove over to his house, not really knowing why I was going over there, but I was shaking.  Nervous about what I was doing, scared that I was putting myself out there again, anxious because it had been so long since I had seen him, excited because I was going to see him ... terrified because I might face rejection again.  So I knocked on his door and when he opened it, he was genuinely shocked to see me.  So I walked in and we stood in an embrace for more than 5 minutes.  No words, just standing there breathing together, locked around one another.  It was as if all the stress of the past 5 weeks was eliminated by just that one moment.  I told him that I didnt quite know why I had come, but, good or bad, I felt compelled to see him.  


So we sat down and talked.  I told him that I was miserable, and he didnt really believe me.  I guess he still sees me as this strong person who is bigger than this, a person who can just dust it off, pick herself back up and find the missing pieces as soon as the dust settles.  Little does he know really how torn I am.  It always amazes me that I am so weak when it comes to my romantic relationships, but so strong in so many other areas of my life.  Wonders never cease to amaze me.  Anyway, in our discussion, we tried to answer the question: What do we do now?  I had no idea.  He had no idea.  But we kind of came to a conclusion that we both could live with: we should set a date, about a month away, and have a date, per say, to kind of see where we are.  This really wasnt my favorite idea, but I didnt have any other suggestions at the time, so I agreed to it.  He wanted to wait a month mostly because he wanted me to have some time to be apart from him.  For him, it would be the easy route to just get back together, to enjoy all the good times again -- but that wasnt the point.  He was worried that while we were busy being young and dumb and going back and forth between fighting and being a couple, that I might miss out on a really good guy.  He said that I can forgive him for a lot of things, but he has had his chance with me, a few of them -- and he's blown it, every time.  So he told me that if I missed out on a really good guy because of him, he could never forgive himself.  But we decided to see what happenes, so we kind of set an arbitrary date and I left his place and went back to work.


I felt really calm and surprisingly relieved.  When I got home that evening, he sent me an email saying that seeing me was hard.  He reinforced the fact that he didnt want me to miss out on a good guy because I was with "a 30 year old unemployed college student".  This really caught me off guard.  I have struggled with this in the past, kind of giving up my dream, so to speak, of finding a guy with a good career, who has his life in order and was financially stable.  But, I have faced that demon, and have decided that it really is not a factor for me.  It shocked me, tho, that he brought it up.  I didnt really know what to think about it, he had never referred to himself like that before.


So, I thought about it.  And the one thing that kept weighing on me, was that if we were to get back together, all those issues that we used to have -- they would resurface, for sure.  So, I had an idea.  What if we sat down, have a heart to heart talk, and face all those issues that have been weighing us down?  What if we lay everything out on the table and just face them?  If we address everything that keeps coming up over and over and over again, and make peace with it, then we can decide what to do.  Make a grown up, adult decision to either be together, or remain apart.  We can make that decision not out of anger or because we are fighting, but because its what we both want.  We really need to sit down and define the relationship.  So, the day that I left for San Fran, I sent him the email that laid out my plan.  I didnt know what he would think about it, because it would force him to face all those issues that we had been hiding behind, bringing everything out from under the covers and really digging deep into why things had gone so horribly wrong.  I didnt know if he would be up for that much emotional vulnerability, but I received a reply email the next day.  It was very short, simple and sweet -- and it was exactly what I needed to hear.  "i think that is a good idea. if you want to, i want to."


So I went on my trip, it was one of the most amazing, relaxing and calming experiences I have ever had!  4 good friends, 3 days, 8 wineries, over 200 tastings, good food, and so much "me" time.


I really didnt think too much about what was going on outside of what I was doing that weekend.  Even at night, when I did have time to think, I really didnt think too much about what was going on between me and him.  It felt good to have weekend where thoughts of him didnt consume my life, it was the first time in a long time that I had that freedom ... and I basked in it!


He sent me 2 more emails while I was gone, nothing huge, just little notes that wished me well on my trip and such.  It was so nice to hear from him, but I didnt want to spoil it with a whole bunch of responses back and forth, so I didnt really respond to him while I was away.  I did, however, send him an email the day after I got back, yesterday.  I told him that I wanted to call him when I got home, but I didnt.  I said that I wanted to set up lunch this week to sort of set a time to have our "define the relationship" talk, that I hoped he had a really good weekend and that I hoped to talk to him soon.  His response to that was vague, which is a little frustrating, but im hoping that he maybe just needs some time to mull things over.  I have a good feeling about it tho, and I stay hopeful.  We shall see.

Day 29

There is a good friend of my company's who is a motivational speaker, he gives presentations all over the country and is from here in the StL area.  He lives very close to my office and comes in every once-in-a-while to talk to my company ... he also brings us pizza, so we all love him!  He was at our first User Conference and we had a really good conversation, and ever since then, his blog and inspirational messages have been a driving force in my life.  Anyway, he came in to give a presentation Friday afternoon, his message: put yourself out there.  I seriously thought he was talking directly to me (even though he has no idea about what is going on in my life).  He basically said that sometimes you just need to walk away, but other times, you need to look deep within, figure out what it is that you really want, and go for it.  He said that you cant predict how others will react to your actions, all you can do is be in control of yourself.  What everyone else thinks or does is really none of your concern, and it shouldnt run or ruin your life.

With this message fresh in my brain, it really forces me to evaluate my whole situation.  What do I really want?  

I wrote him an email.  I think I am going to send this one.  I have been spending all this time wondering how he feels and speculating about things, but why do that when I can go straight to the source and ask?  This is how I feel we got into trouble in the first place ... making assumptions that were completely wrong.  I just need to send him an email to let him know that I dont blame him for everything, that we both played an equally destructive part in the downfall of the relationship.  I realize that now, and with this fresh new perspective, I feel like this will be a good thing -- even though I still feel cautious because he could laugh in my face, or he could completely ignore me again, but if I dont put myself out there, Ill never know.  And I feel like that would be worse.