It is hard not to seem like I am bragging when I say that I have sidestepped the usual Heartbreaks of Love.
You know what I am talking about.
I have not been dumped or cheated on, or manipulated, or used, or enticed out of, or any of the trappings that others have endured when finding their love of a lifetime. I can honestly say that my heart has never really truly been broken.
Yeah, I know. It is hard not to sound like I am bragging. Most of you know me well enough to know what my marriage is like so this is a weird story compared to the average person.
So this is the issue, have I just been lucky, or was it deliberate?
I have been thinking about this a lot since I have boys that are the age to dabble in the waters of love. Honestly, it scares the hell out of me. I live and show and model my life to show my boys what it is truly like to love what you do and to know what it is like to share your love of life with one who loves you to the moon and back. I just hope they were..... are paying attention. I am hoping I have taught them how to come out the other side less scathed than the average person.
I believe now that there are some very important guidelines I lived by to skate by some hard times in the search for love. I don't know if they will be worthwhile for any of you but this blog is like my journal and I want it to be left for my boys to look back on soooooooo......
Here we go:
#1 You have to love yourself. I have a whole other entry on this. But really, if you are looking for love to fix your heart and heal yourself, well, I just have not seen that turn out well very often. It goes against all the "you make me whole" yarn that is out there. It is just not true that the love of another person somehow fixes you.
#2 Be wary of the pretty people with ugly personalities. Infatuation is a cruel manipulator and will blind you to this. Time is the enemy of Infatuation. Remember that.
#3 If it didn't work out, it never will. I have always made a pact with myself that if I ever called it quits with a girl or she called it quits with me, that I would never go back. To be honest, I never have had that happen so..... I am not sure if I would have held true to it. I am pretty sure I would have, though, because of my mindset. In my mind, if things got so bad that a girl would want to call it quits, it would never work - ever. She had already made up her mind she didn't want to go any further. If I got back together with her, I would never know if they would just pull that trick out of their hat again and again and again and again. I call those kind of relationships trampolines 😉.
#4 Make sure you have fun with them and without them. You know - liking what each other do for fun. I would suggest making sure you have things in common and not in common. Make some of those things that you will just not ever like so that they can have their own space to enjoy them with friends and some that are new to you and make you step out of your comfort zone. Remember, you love yourself so your whole life is not revolving around each other. It is perfectly okay to have your own time with your own friends or for yourself. This is true for them as well. If they can't be ok on there own for awhile, they will wear you out and smother you.
#5 Pick a person who complements your love language. There is a book called "The Five Love Languages." I really feel that this book put into words what I think I just naturally picked up on all the time. Give it a read and see what you think. To go off of that, I'll give you an example. My love language is Physical Touch. One of my wife's strongest love languages is Quality Time. She feels loved most when a person spends time with her doing new things or just being present with her. Well, when I am giving her quality time, she is more affectionate and cuddly which feeds my love language. You see?
#6 Have the grit and the fortitude to do what is right. If you know that something is going nowhere, then have the guts to call it off. Seriously. If you string someone along, you are the one that is breaking hearts harder than if you just bit the bullet and called it like it is. If you know it is not going anywhere, then don't let it. There will be tears. There may be yelling. You might get cussed. You are a coward if you can't break it off because of a few tears and a cussing. Man up on this one. Maybe that is why I missed some heartache is because I just didn't go further when I didn't feel it was what I wanted. Maybe . . ...
#7. When things start to get serious - - - - and you know what I mean. Like when you guys pass the "getting to know you" stage. You have to have some hard revelations to experience and find out:
1. Where are you guys going to end up living?
2. What is their future goals for their career?
3. How many kids do they want? Do they want kids? (How many divorces do you know where this was not discussed until after the wedding?)
4. What religion are they and what church will you guys go to?
5. What is their family like and will you be able to live with them being your family?
6. What do they expect with simple things like household chores and what jobs you have with raising children?
7. How do they manage money and what is their mindset with how money is spent by both of you? Money is a real stressor in a relationship so start figuring that out by observing first and asking questions a little later along.
8. How do they take care of their things and more importantly....how do they take care of your things?
9. What do they think of your friends. How do they talk to them? About them? How do they treat them?
#8 I think it is important to see how they really respond to different emotional stuff. How do they act when they are mad? How do they talk to you or treat you when they are mad? How do they react to you when you are sad or mad? What are they like when they are scared or full of anxiety? How do they treat you when they are? How do they talk to you when they are? How do they respond to the setbacks of life? (I have written about this too - We have a hard life, not a hard marriage) How do they handle it and what do they expect you to do when it happens? Stuff like that.
#9 Here is one that is very very important - What are they like when they are drunk? This is a weird one. But really, I am serious. People sure do show you a lot of themselves when they are drunk. Watch for what caused them to get drunk, what they were like when drunk, what they say when drunk, what they are like after they are drunk, and especially how they treat you when they are drunk. Honestly, for me. ...I have never been drunk. Like, forget what happened lose all control of myself drunk. I know, it's hard to believe.... I never have, never will, and hate to even think of what I am like if it ever happened. I know, it is impossible to even think that a person would not have been at least once in their life but hey, believe what you believe, huh? But I have seen some people that I love when they are and hate when they are. I think the reason I have this one is that when I was a very young teen, I had some intense memories of being around people who have gotten drunk and that really shaped how I feel about people who drink themselves into oblivion.
Well, that is all I can think of right now. Maybe I will come back and update this as I think of more but these were ones that I really lived by as I was growing up.
One last note on this. Meeting my wife was a God thing. No lie. We were both not going to go to the place we met and somehow got talked into it. I was seeing someone at the time but it was not really serious or had gotten serious yet. But, I am lucky, you know? I seemed to have been left unscarred by the usual heartaches and still ended up with the love of my life. Man, it is hard to say that and not sound like I am bragging. But here I am and I can't relive my life so. . . . .
