Pulling it Together

 Pulling it Together

It makes me feel funny to think that two people that can care for each other so much can have their relationship fall apart so fast and destructively. I have learned recently that feelings are strong but it takes a lot of work and preparation in order to keep that foundation of love strong and steady. 

When people form relationships, it is so hard to set expectations. Well, it isn’t actually hard to set expectations but it is difficult to allow yourself to be honest enough with yourself and with your potential partner to where the two of you can sit down together and discuss certain topics openly and honestly knowing that it is okay to have different opinions and that it is okay to be hurt and have sad feelings about disagreements. It blew my mind when I realized this, but it plays a large role in how I see relationships now. I am not saying that we should want or try to hurt others, only that we should recognize that feeling emotional pain is a part of life and it hurts when someone you care about doesn’t end up being the person you should end up with.

It hurts when people disagree on how to live because people hold certain values close to their hearts, and when a significant person comes along and says otherwise, it causes strain and discomfort. People don’t really like to be uncomfortable so they just avoid the subjects where they have a possibility of feeling so. 

But if couples don’t allow for that possibility, they will end up suffering more in the future. There are so many things that go into a healthy relationship and a lot of it has to do with expectations and assumptions of roles. Both of which take conversation to figure out. If a man assumes that he will do all the work to bring in money and balance the family financially, while a wife will take care of the children and clean, and his wife assumes that the husband will come home from work and help with the chores and include her in financial decisions, the two are bound to have a disagreement either when the man sees that the house is not clean when he gets home, or when the woman sees that the man is making big decisions without her. This is an example of the expectations a couple can have based on their assumptions about the roles each person plays in a marriage. 

It is so hard to live with that kind of tension for a long period of time, but people do it so that they can avoid having a fight and risk losing the person they love or risk being “the bad guy” in a situation. I don’t think this is a healthy way to live. We really need to be honest with ourselves on how we truly feel. And we should not be repressing our true feelings so often as it makes a relationship a miserable experience rather than a happy, pleasant one. 

I really want to be okay feeling what I feel. I don’t want to hold back my feelings because I am scared someone will leave my life. I wouldn’t want to be with a person who would only stay with me if I wasn’t myself anyway. I also want to be okay with the possibility of my true feelings hurting someone else's feelings. When it comes to my life, I want to be with the right people who build me up. The way to do that is being honest with myself and with others.