Things I Have Learned

Isn't it crazy what love can do to you? If you read my other articles, you know that I feel love and hate are very similar emotions. Which brings me to the things I have learned.
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Isn't it crazy what love can do to you? If you read my other articles, you know that I feel love and hate are very similar emotions. Which brings me to the things I have learned:

You absolutely can love someone too much. When one person in more "invested" than the other, the journey of a relationship becomes completely off kilter. The person more invested always feels like why don't they love me as I love them. Why don't they make me a priority? Why are my feelings the last to matter? All the while the other person is standing there saying... I told you I wasn't perfect. All of the differences between the amounts of investment leads to "I put in more than you do" Which of course leads to the ultimate destruction of any relationship. It has to be an equal 100% on all parts or it will never work.

Excuses are just that. Saying things like "I don't trust and I and have a hard time investing" only works for the first month or so. After that, you are invested and you should know the difference between what's right and what's wrong.

"I tried/I'm trying" on a continual basis really means, "can we stop fighting, I'll say anything you want to hear to make you shut up right now" .... Trying to put someone else's feelings as a priority means being honest, even if it may hurt. Trying to be compassionate is not telling someone that anything is more important than they are. Trying is not saying I will, and then never doing it. Trying is grabbing the person you love and telling them they are one of the most important things in your world. Trying is actually the art of compromise, which everyone knows you have to do to make any relationship work.

I have learned that loving someone doesn't mean they will love you back. Being honest with someone doesn't mean they will be honest back. Giving yourself to someone doesn't mean they will give back.

I have learned that someone can both lie to you and say I care about you in the same sentence. I've learned that not everyone has a conscience they have to deal with, and I've learned that there are people out there who literally just don't care about anything but what works for them, and have no desire to change it.

I have learned that jumping in with your heart and not your head only leaves to heartache in the end. With this, I have also learned that no one is at fault for any of that heartache but me. When someone looks at you and is honest enough to say I am not in this like you are, listen to their words. What they actually are saying is that "you are really cool to hang out with, and I am comfortable, but I won't give like you will" not I can't give, but I won't.

I have learned that I love myself too much to allow myself to be put in this situation again. I have learned to listen to my head, enjoy the pitter-patter in my heart, but when I see the red flag, I can't just ignore it.

I have learned that the world is wide open for me. I have learned what I am willing to negotiate on and I have learned when it is time to walk away.

I have learned to promise myself that if someone really wants to be with me, they will show me. I have learned that attempting to force anything will never work, and I have learned that if in the beginning there is little or no effort, there never will.

Where is the bottom line in all of this learning? Clearly, like many people, there becomes a pattern in their dating history. Not that each person was not unique or special, but that the situation itself has become a pattern. How do I move forward from the pattern? That is the million-dollar question that each of us has to keep trying to find the answer.

For me the answer is simple, keep trying. Don't let all of these mistakes of the past make me wonder if it is my destiny to remain in this pattern. Find a way to embrace every experience and learn. Each experience has good in it. Take the good, remember the bad but keep trying.

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