Thursday, September 22, 2011

"It's not like he was a pig and CHOSE to be an asshat? There were just times that it occurred, and I began to wonder if the investment was worth it."

Ok, so...

Holy, holy, holy....I've been really lazy. I planned to take a small hiatus from blogging last year in order to get my life sorted out a bit after school ended last year...and evidently, it turned out to be a lot, looooooot longer than I had planned. BUTTTT, I'm back, and I plan to rededicate myself writing and being here for my readers (if I still have any left)...Sheesh.

So, a ton has happened over the last few months. My romantic life is in fabulous shape, and while that is marvellous for me...it is not necessarily going to be a such a perk for this blog. I don't really like the idea of writing about my personal life when it includes selling out the person that I live with (we moved in together at the beginning of the month), but it's pretty probable that little parts of our relationship will ooze out and emanate all over this blog. I feel sorry for him really. Some of our friends are inevitably going to come to judge him based on the things I share here. The poor bastard.

However, throughout all of this, there is something I have learned...something so important that it is going to become salient piece of advice #10: Your heart knows you better than anyone or anything else. Sometimes is pays off to just shut the hell up and listen to it, okay? When I first met my boyfriend, he was sweet, kind, and handsome but about as awkward as they come and as inexperienced as you can get...seriously. He meant well, but he did a few things that were so insensitive and disrespectful in the beginning of our relationship that several of my friends questioned why I wanted to stay with him? One friend said "You don't want to be stuck being his teacher, or even worse, a mother figure to him." What she meant was that we could very easily fall into a the trap of me always trying to show him to handle a relationship. He so desperately wanted to do well, to be the best boyfriend possible, but he had spent so much time being a bachelor and thinking only about himself that he really didn't know how else to act. And if I were to be honest, which I always am when I write here...there were a few times that I really wasn't sure that we would make it...I honestly wondered if he had been dropped on his head as a child! Why else would you be so devoid of the general decency that people have towards one another in relationships. It's not like he was a pig and CHOSE to be an asshat? There were just times that it occurred, and I began to wonder if the investment was worth it.

BUT.

But.

Something always kept me there.

Something kept me believing in him, even when he did something that didn't deserve me giving him a second thought, because deep down, my heart knew something bigger was there. And boy? Was there ever. He is still sweet, kind, and handsome (and as my feelings have grown, even more handsome - meeeooowww) but now, he is considerate, attentive, and goes out of his way to be there for me as much as possible. I'm not even remotely sorry about sticking it out.

Some people will look at this and their immediate response will be "all you did was condition him, like your little lap dog, to do whatever you wanted." That is not what happened. The development of strong and healthy relationship came out of that little elementary school saying, treat others as you would like to be treated, which is salient piece of advice #11...We frequently forget how much treating someone well can do for them. In this case, I was as good to him as I could possibly be (with the exception of the moments when he pissed me off beyond momentary repair) and he began to work on returning it...and he does. Every single day. That's not conditioning - that's being a decent human being.

Think about it!

Happy to be back,

 - Jenn