Relationships...

So...

I have learned alot about relationships in my life. While I was married for only 10 years, and am only 30...I feel I have a pretty good idea of what to do and what not to do - at least based from the perspective I have had.

Have recently been listening to a few friends and their relationship issues and fight my urge to reply or say anything, as I always seem to speak before I think. But I did have some thoughts I wanted to jot down....

First, I think communication is essential in a signif other. You cannot, absolutely cannot, begin to have an open, honest relationship with anyone else unless you are talking about things. And that goes for being open to having someone tell you things as well. Communication is also listening to another's ideals and perspectives. Sure, they may not go along with yours, but so what??? Do you immediately shut them up with harsh words because "you don't want to hear it", or do you embrace the fact that THEY are an individual, and are independent enough and ADULT enough to have their own thoughts and opinions?

I spent alot of my marriage being "shut down". As in, if the ex said something, and I thought something else, I was immediately put down for it, and was told I was wrong. After you get shut down enough, you begin to stop offering up your opinions, because you know they aren't valued, respected, or appreciated. Then after awhile, you begin to even forget that at one time you HAD opinions and thoughts. Like the old saying goes, you are told something enough times, pretty soon you start to believe it.

Don't shut each other down. Listen to each other's crazy ideas. Listen and don't judge each other. YOU ARE ON THE SAME SIDE for cryin out loud! Be accepting that your mate will have differing opinions than you. The only person that feels exactly the way you do about everything is YOU, and that's pretty lonely.

Secondly, for a relationship to work, you MUST put that persons needs, wants, and desires before your own. Period. This act of 'self-involvement' and 'self-absorption'....is non-existent. YES, we all have needs. Yes, we all have desires. Yes, we all have wants. But the right person for you will have a desire to fulfill all of those and not just speak it - they will actively pursue it. Loving another means denying yourself. You place your faith and hope into this other person. Your trust. That they will fulfill ALL of your needs and wants. And they do the same for you. Sadly, many people are scared. (I was one of these at one time) Many people are scared because all they have known is the storms of life, and the hardships, and they KNOW the other shoe always drops. (It did in my house - always) Some walk around like the Care Bear, Grumpy Bear, with that cloud of gloom reigning over them. They are scared to put any faith in another person, because they anticipate failure, that the bubble will burst again, and they will be hurt...again.

In putting anothers needs and wants before your own, you must realize...you are on the same side. You aren't supposed to be against this person, or fighting this battle on your own. Life is tough, and this world we live in SUCKS alot of the time. (For all my atheist friends, just go with me here for a second...lol) God INTENDED us to have a "helper" - a companion, to fight this life battle together. Not to be alone. Not someone to be an enemy. BUT someone who had our best interests at heart and be accepting of WHO we are.

Thirdly, accept each other. Don't complain about what you permit. If your signif other spends all of their time in front of the tv while you are together dating, don't anticipate that anything is going to change. It won't. If they were that way then, and you were fine with it, and never brought it up as an issue, then you are giving non-verbal acceptance. If its an issue after the marriage, tough.

Accepting doesn't mean you agree with it. For instance, I don't agree with the fact that eating oreos make me fat - that's just not right. But I accept that is the way it is, and I cannot change that. What I CAN do, is find solutions to work together with my body AND the oreos so I can get what I want, but my body is happy too. Accepting means working with your signif other in a loving, caring way to come to common ground. Because you have chosen to be with each other. Accepting doesn't mean you like it. It DOES mean you will work together at it.

But that leads us to fourthly...

Fourthly, get over the small shit. Keep perspective. We are all going to die. All of us. Whining over trivial things consistently ONLY makes you look like an unhappy asshead. Yes, you might be. You may be a genuinely unhappy person, and if so, that's a shame. It is a shame that in your life, you cannot find a glimmer of SOMETHING (including your signif other!!!!) to make you happy. If you are that unhappy and you even have someone by your side, dear God, I would kiss their feet and thank them over and over for the fact they put up with your sourpuss ass!
In the grand scheme of things, there is SOOOO much we whine and complain over, that really doesn't matter. Get over it and yourself. Look outside of yourself and ask, "how is this making the love of my life feel?" Or anyone else for that matter!!!
I "get" that we need to vent, and we need to whine. But do it and be DONE with it. Life is way too short to dwell on bullshit. Enjoy the rest of the life you have. It IS all you have got.

A few more to summarize....forgive each other for being human. We all will fuck up. We will get hurt and will hurt each other. Whether it is because we came home and talked about ourselves all evening and neglected to ask the other how their day was, or whether we burnt the peas....we will fuck up. Forgive each other for being human. Would you rather have that person in your life, or the peas?????

And don't take each other for granted. Don't assume they will be there tomorrow. Life each day for itself. It IS all you have. Yesterday is gone and we aren't promised tomorrow. Show too much affection, tell them you love them too many times, kiss over and over and over. Have too much sex instead of too much arguing...take the time to have lunch together and laugh with each other, sit on a bench on Mass Ave and people watch, together. Make the most of your time together. Don't take each other for granted. Life is too short to lose someone who "gets" you - and it is so important to be "gotten".


Deny your self, your selfishness, your needs, your wants, and put the other person's before yours. And don't take them for granted.

LMS

Proud to be...

A GUEST poster on a good friend's blog :) She commissioned me and of course I can't say no to giving my opinion. She mentioned the need to perhaps censor my words for her viewing audience....and that's ok. But here is my guest post in its uncensored entirety...

Oh and the link to her blog, which the post I have sent you to is the precursor to the one she asked me to write....

http://izzybeth.blogspot.com/2010/09/facebook-experiment-part-4.html

Guest post

Dealing with the DREADED FB UNFRIENDING is the sad connundrum we ourselves have placed upon us. why is it SO terminal when we are minding our own business on Facebook...checking out what people are doing, and GASP! We realize in horror that we have been UNFRIENDED, or (EVEN WORSE) BLOCKED!!!!!

Is it the fact that this was SUCH a public display of a diss? Personally, I have been unfriended a few times, blocked a few times, and each time, I simply have to laugh. Sure, there is the initial "shock and awe" of HOW DARE THEY?!?!?!!?!? But really, this all boils down to the equivalent of a group of 5 year olds on the playground taunting each other. And it is - because Facebook is the adult playground.

This year in fact, I had an UNFRIENDING, which to this day, leaves me cackling....

I was sitting on my computer, with Facebook up, doing homework, and typing on Yahoo IM (multi-tasker!!!!). I was chatting on Yahoo IM with a male friend who was having some issues with me...and I was listening, rather, pretending to listen, as he ranted on and on. It ends up he gets SO pissed with me, he signs off IM abruptly. I think to myself, well, ok, he needs to cool off, ok fine.

So back to my homework I go...

Next thing I know, my phone starts buzzing continuously as this fellow is rapid-fire texting me...as I pick up my phone to look at it, I do believe I said aloud, "Are you kidding me!?!???" To be honest it was so long ago I forget the conversation exactly, but I do know that me replying just added fuel to his fire.

He said a few choice words and I thought - geez, no way I can do homework with this going on - I KNOW!!! I will play on Facebook! And so I procede to click on people and check out what they are doing. I happen to click on the very person I was talking to (yes - I actually wanted to see if they had changed their status to reflect the current happenings, lol) and HOLY HELL, I WAS NOT A FRIEND!!!!!

I started giggling at that point, and was cackling by the time I had texted "Did you just unfriend me on Facebook?" into my phone as a reply to him.

Silence. (because no sooner than 2 seconds after you did it, I caught you mutha-fucka!!!)

So I send another text. "Real mature for a 30 something adult there pal"

Silence.

So I cackle to myself and NATURALLY go to Facebook to update my status 'I WAS UNFRIENDED ON FACEBOOK AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT'

About an hour later, I receive a friend request with an email following asking my forgiveness, how stupid and immature he was, he was just so mad, etc, etc, etc

We are still not FB "friends". And I still cackle about it.

Dealing with unfriending and being unfriended:

1. If you are unfriended, it is NOT a diss, nor is it a reflection on you as a person. If you are basing your ego on being unfriended, you seriously have more issues than that.

2. If you are unfriended, I would suggest a "benefit of the doubt" refriending, whereby you send a friend request to the culprit. If they accept, you know it was a casual mistake. Technology DOES fail. If they don't, do not begin to 'friend request stalk' - that just shows how pathetic you really are and will potentially cause them to block you (and then you can't even view their activity from your common friends walls!!!)

3. If you decide to unfriend someone, THIS is a big decision. You literally can be sending someone into a mental breakdown of sorts. Make sure you are FINAL in your unfriending.

4. Perhaps you actually might be really just sick of seeing all their dumbass posts, and getting all the status updates about how pathetic they are, or how they just took a big dump in Poop Row....in which case, consider "Hiding" before Unfriending. They won't know you have hidden them. And that will be one less serial murderer for me to worry about on Craigslist.

5. You may use the Unfriending as I do, as a punishment to assholes who do you wrong. This is OK, as long as you are not just acting out of stupid anger. When I recently moved, a friend on FB sent me a message indicating they would totally be there to help me move. (I knew this person outside of FB, by the way) They said "You can count on me". And then moving day NO CALL NO SHOW. They left me hanging without an explanation. So - to showcase MY irritability with their actions, I unfriended them. That was my way of saying "Fuck off" without actually haveing to exert the effort of typing them a message...just a simple CLICK, and they were gone. It was a cleansing feeling :)

All in all, I must say, I LOVE Facebook. I used to say it is my crack. I am better about it now as in I don't HAVE to be on it all the time, and I am not. I find it a good resource to network and laugh with people about shit, and laugh at people about their shit. Don't take the unfriending personally, laugh it off, you aren't 5 years old you know...

Happy Unfriending!

LMS

It IS the gum that binds us....

So....I love gum. But I hate chewing it. I never chew it very long because it causes me headaches. So I am always looking for opportunities to spit it out.

I was at work and had to pee, so I am doing my thang...chewing my gum and bustling down the hall to the women's restroom. I enter and immediately go for the first line of stalls, avoiding purposely what I have internally named "Poop Row".

****The bathrooms we have give you two options when you enter. You can procede straight away to the first row of stalls, there are about 6. Or you can cross over the long line of sinks and make your way to the line of stalls on the far end of the bathroom. "Poop Row". Why have I named it thus? Well, I don't know if it is this way in the men's room, but in the women's, THIS is the row of stalls you hit if you must do "number 2". And everyone knows it. You go to that side for the extra privacy you need, because most will avoid that side if at all possible, it's all good! (Sometimes, I have to just go "#1", but will purposely hit "Poop Row" because if you do, you can hear a pin drop as everyone immediately 'STOPS WHAT THEY'RE DOING'. Ha, and I just do my business and get out of there, smiling as I make everyone uncomfy for having to hold it all in - Hey, its the little pleasures in life people, come on)
And it is so bad - these thoughts within myself - that sometimes I will go into the bathroom and find SOMEONE who CLEARLY needs to BE in "Poop Row", but AREN'T!!!! And it is those times I really want to bang on the stall and remind them of the "Poop Row" policy....but then I remember "Poop Row" is in my head, and mine alone.****


So, I am chewing my gum, taking a piss, minding my own business...when I decide that I want to get rid of my gum. Rather than waste toilet paper by balling the gum into a tissue, I decide to be slick and spit it out, into the toilet, as I am squatted over it. I am SO badass.

Business done, go to pull up my undies, go to pull up my pants....when...I feel this - odd sensation - can't quite describe it....a pinching-pulling-pain sensation on the inside of my thigh up to my crotchial area.

I flinch, and sort of cradle up my right leg thinking...growing pain??? I slowly let it down and there it is again!!!! FLinching again, I move to rub my thigh where I feel it.

And OH YEAH I FEEL IT allright....

The gum.

I stare in horror at the bathroom stall door because I know my next move is to turn around and look into the toilet to see if the gum that is REALLY apparently stuck on my body happens to actually be in the toilet...but I ashamedly just drop my head in unbelief. Of course dropping my head at the right angle I was able to get a good view of the toilet and no, no gum in the toilet.

I forget if the tears started then...or if it was when I had to remove my pants to see a long pink strand of gum going to my pantleg, to my thigh, to my undies, to my croctchial area.

Apparently, from what the scientists can deduce, is that the gum landed on my upper thigh. Thus when I pulled up my undies, the gum caught a ride and made its way up to the holy land, where it decided to plot some land and build a city. Amidst all the hustle and bustle, the pants were feeling left out, so they too decided to allow the gum to visit as well.

I remember having to cut gum out of my hair (on my head) as a kid. They really don't make office scissors for every 'office job' - is all I can say.

Eat your heart out Doublemint Twins

LMS