What I’ve learned from Relationships

Most of you probably read the title and thought “damn, she’s using the R word in 2018” but, someone had to. 

It’s crazy looking back to young me and what she wanted in a relationship vs who I am today. I can honestly say, I’ve only had two serious relationships in my entire 24 years of life and both of them taught me things about myself that I never imagined and most importantly it taught me a lot about the type of relationship  and partner I really want.

1st Relationship:

My first serious relationship started a few weeks before my 18th birthday and it lasted for over 4 years. I don’t really know how else to describe this relationship, other than intense, looking back now I know that I was way too young and I didn’t figure myself out yet. I thought by dating him, I would somehow found my way to me, in a way where he became my identity and the more I thought I was getting close to who I’m supposed to be, the more I lost myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it was all bad, I’m saying the time for us was wrong and we stayed in that relationship too long, just because we didn’t want to see each other with someone else.

One key thing I’ve learned from that relationship was that I can’t fully love someone else if I don’t even love myself. I feel like this was probably the most important thing I took from that relationship. Now the reason I say this is, until you learn to love yourself, you’ll love someone else’s version of you or what they want you to be and my dearies that’s when you lose yourself even more.

2nd Relationship:

This one literally came out of the blue. I didn’t plan to date again after my ex, I wanted to be alone and just figure myself out, which I did. I became so independent that I had to learn how to depend on my boyfriend (this was hella hard btw), I think it took about 7/8 months, maybe more. I just got so used to counting on myself and being this strong person that I didn’t know how to let another human being take care of me, because I didn’t really have that in my previous relationship. When I eventually let him take care of me, I realised how nice it was to have someone care that much about you. I didn’t have a worry in the world to be honest and no matter what I was going through, I knew he would be there to support me.

One of the things I’ve learned from this relationship is that sometimes you do need someone to take care of you, and I don’t mean to buy you shit, but to take care of you emotionally. To be there when you’ve had a hard day, sometimes it’s okay to let your guard down. 

What I took from both these relationships, and I know a lot of you might relate to it, is that we’re often so fooled by ‘the honeymoon stage’ that we forget why we fell in love with the person in the first place. Once you’re a few months into a relationship things often change, when the shyness and newness of the relationship is gone. You then get to a place where you feel like your partner is not doing what they have done in the beginning of the relationship and most times you end up resenting your partner and just wanting out of the relationship.

This happened in both relationships and both times I wanted to leave because I truly felt unappreciated and unloved, like I’m just not that important to him, as I was in the beginning. 

The first time I stayed way too long because I was madly in love with him, so in love that I thought we’d get married, start a family and live happily ever after, but see the problem with this relationship was the fact that it was wrong from the start, so no matter what effort both of us made, it was never going to work out.

The second time around, the honeymoon phase lasted for a year. At first we would laugh when everyone was saying how we were still in the honeymoon stage, because to us, everything came so easy, we didn’t really have to try at all. Fast forward to a year later and we’re like besties living together and not in the greatest way. As much as I want to blame him for letting everything else take priority over us, I’ve allowed it for so long, that that has become the norm. It has been so hard to get back to where we used to be, like we actually have to try x3 times harder now. It’s crazy.

I guess the lesson in it all is, that if you truly love someone and you’re good for each other, you have to work hard every day and always show that person how much they mean to you. We’ve found that it’s the little things that counts the most.

Okay! I’m going to end this post here as it is getting a bit too long.

Let me know below in the comments if you could relate to anything I’ve mentioned in this post.

On a last note, this is the first post in the ‘relationship series’ and I truly hope you guys enjoy it.

Till next time.

Love Always