Leaps of Faith

I was out to dinner this evening with My Squishy and we stumbled onto an interesting conversation about transparency in relationships.  My experience and even belief is that there should be 100% transparency in a relationship. That there should be nothing about him and what goes on in his life that I’m not aware and vice versa.  That way in all things we’re always on the same page, united against the world as it were.

I was surprised to discover that he feels and acts differently.  He has 2 areas where he believes this is unnecessary. One, is that if he is aware of something that brings no good into the relationship and would affect it negatively but doesn’t actually impact me then he would not share it to avoid burdening me with something that could only affect me or us negatively.  Second, if he feels that something is trivial then he doesn’t think it important enough to share.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand he is a wonderful and supportive BF and him trying to protect me from negative things is very much in line with how he operates. But do I want to be kept in the dark for my own protection or would I rather know all things even if it would weigh heavily on me at times?  I don’t know yet honestly. It’s so different than my marriage that I find myself uncomfortable with the change in expectations.

The second one I find concerning in that we have different opinions on what is trivial or not.  Case in point – he has an ongoing friendship with one of his ex GF’s that while I understand it I’m not exactly thrilled with. I no longer have the fresh dew of blind trust & faith in relationships I once had.  So I would prefer to have pretty good idea of when & what they talk about. And for him to not bring it up raises flags vs. some level of awareness of their level of contact.  Should there be this level of trust?  Is it considered intrusive to have an expectation of him to let me know who he’s talking to?

I know one shouldn’t compair one relationship against another but I can’t help to at times. A couple years ago I started forming a friendship with a woman who was a widow who had remarried and I asked her one day if it was hard to love again after having lost her spouse of 12 years. I still recall what she told me – every serious relationship you have will be different. It will operate differently, have different rules, expectations, and the love will even feel different.  It’s your willingness to be both flexible and accepting of those differences that will allow you to move on or be trapped in the past.

This has been so true for me. Both in the discovery in flexibility but also in accepting the feel of this different relationship.  ‘S’ and I’s relationship was forged in the struggles of youth & based on lies, although I was unaware at the time. He was in my blood like no one else before. I loved him unconditionally, blindly, foolishly and what he would say to me was unquestioned.  I offered all that I was up in that relationship and in some ways it lead to my early salvation and later ruin.

With My Squishy I have tip toed into our relationship with the greatest of trepidation & caution after being so badly burned.  I’ve analyzed most things that have been said and left unsaid. As well as 1000 other small things. I’ve tried to discover my own feelings and reflect on them objectively.  Perhaps too much at times for all of this. I wish I could just ‘let go’ and make this up as we go with nothing from past experiences to color my views. But I think perhaps I’m a bit too jaded and cynical to take such leaps of faith.

Butch vs. Bitch – Which are you?

I had an interesting conversation with some friends this evening and we got on the topic of relationships and one of them mentioned his was struggling due to the classic ‘butch vs. bitch’ power struggle.  I was immediately intrigued.  This is not an official psychological title now folks.  This is something he’s made up to very succinctly describe the natural power roles that take place in every relationship.  The ‘butch’ which can be male or female, is the decision maker in most things.  The natural leader.  ‘The ‘bitch’ once again being male or female, is one who wants and even prefers to have the decisions made by another.  Many people reading this right now are saying, ‘oh my relationship is 50/50…’  Where’s my Bullshit button?  No relationship is 50/50.   This is not a bad thing now — Someone must always be the captain of the ship.

Where you run into problems though is if you have two butches or two bitches in a relationship.  Cause with the first, you’re in a never ending power struggle.  Someone’s going to have to take the passenger seat.  That doesn’t mean they don’t get to help navigate or have input.  It just means they don’t hold the final veto card.  With two bitches well…. this is actually the worst kind of relationship I think.  This is one where you hear, ‘where do you want to go for dinner?  I don’t know, where do you wanna go?’ and on and on and on.  In this type of relationship, with two bitches, someone gets made butch by default – that or the relationship dies cause nothing is happening.

This was my problem.  I think that if I respect someone’s decisions and I believe they have my best interests at heart, I’m naturally bitch.  I think I may have just heard some jaws hit the floor for those who know me well.  But I actually am.  I am pretty content to just follow the lead of another with some input here and there on the things I care about providing my input is heard.  A great leader is someone who listens to their team members and steers the ship for the best interest of all.  What happened in ‘S’ and I’s relationship though is he was bitch as well.  And when I saw things not being done or big decisions being made — I stepped into the butch role so we didn’t flounder needlessly.  Where I think I may have failed, was not getting his input enough, or perhaps making him feel as if he was worthless to the cause as a whole.  I just did…. well everything and I became resentful for it.  Something for me to watch for going forward.

So my dear readers, which are you naturally —  Butch or bitch?

The Ultimate Prize

I apologize dear readers for my absence as of late.  I’ve been putting in some long hours at work and been a little tired lately, so sometimes it’s a little hard to find the motivation to write.  However, I just got back from a “girls night out” with 3 of my friends where we went and had dinner and a movie.  And while it’s late and I’m tired, and I have yet another long day at work tomorrow, the movie got me thinking about my own relationships and what I ultimately want.

If you haven’t seen “He’s Just Not That Into You” some of this post may not make a whole lot of sense, but I’ll try to lay out the movie for you (spoiler alert).  At first I was skeptical about going out on a Thursday to a movie that while having an all-star cast, only got so-so reviews.  And while there were moments that were cliché, it had some really good points.  It’s about these men and women, who are in different types of relationships and from a woman’s, and in one case man’s view, of how those relationships are evolving to see if they are going to end up with the ultimate prize, marriage.  It’s mostly based around one single girl looking for Mr. Right and dealing with the many pitfalls of dating.  But the relationship that I followed most intently in the movie was that of the already married couple.

Here you have a seemingly happily married couple, who are successful, are in this large home that they are renovating to meet their every need, and you can just see that they are making plans for the future and even talking about the possibility of children.  Then WHAM!  He’s in the grocery store and sees a beautiful girl in front of him in the check out line and chats her up.  Next thing you know they’re calling each other.  With him reluctant with guilt at first but still going all the way into full adultery with nary a pause.  In the meantime, the wife suspects something.  But she thinks he’s hiding a smoking habit, something she detests since her father died of lung cancer.  She confronts him after finding a pack hidden outside and he blames it on the workers who are renovating their home.  When he finally comes clean about the affair, she asks him about the smoking, which once again he denies.  She calmly accepts the affair and they agree to try to work things out and save their marriage.  But he’s still seeing the slut….err girl, on the side.

The girl eventually dumps him after he shoves her into a closet at his office to hide him from his wife who unexpectedly shows up and once again they agree to work things out.  Later he ignores his wife’s phone call, and she then went to pick up his pants where she finds a carton of cigarettes and completely flips.  She ends up folding all of his clothes neatly on the stairs (after ripping them from the closet) and taped to the carton, is a note telling him to have a ball and she wants a divorce.

The main point of the movie aside from the married couple is that if a guy is “into” you.  He will move heaven and earth to see you, talk to you, and even be near you.  But if he’s not, then he will make vague promises of calling or of when you’ll see him next.  This is so true.  I think back to when I was in high school and there was this guy who liked me.  Everyday between one two classes he would wait for me by this pole.  I have no idea if his class was anywhere near mine but he would be there.   At first, I wasn’t comfortable with him waiting for me and then taking my books and walking me to my class.  But after a couple of days I liked it and was happy to see him.  I enjoyed the feeling of being pursued.  Well apparently I wasn’t giving him enough positive signals because eventually he stopped waiting for me, and I was very disappointed.  To make a long story short, I ended up dating that guy for 2 years and even though it’s been almost 15 years — I still remember those weeks of intense excitement and nervousness over seeing him waiting.

I guess the point that I’m trying to make is that every relationship goes through that intense, exciting period where you are giddy at the thought of seeing the other person.  Where they are always on your mind, and you check your phone 5 thousand times to see if they have called or texted.  At the end of the day though, you want the relationship like Jennifer Annistan and Ben Affleck had in the movie.  They were this couple that had been together for 7 years and were happy.  They weren’t married and it became an issue, but near the end of the movie they got back together because she realizes that marriage is just a piece of paper.  What matters is that you adore the other person.  That you will move heaven and earth just to make them smile and in doing so, you feel ten feet tall.  It’s sending that person a text every morning without fail to tell them “Good morning”.  And being lucky enough to be the recipient of that text, so the first thing you do in the morning is grab your phone to see that greeting.  And it’s the million little things that you can do throughout the day that honors the person and the relationship you share.  Ultimately, its what’s left after the new relationship smell has worn off, and if you truly have something special — it’ll last for a lifetime.

That my friends, is the ultimate prize.  Not just a marriage — But a truly happy, and even comfortable one.