I hate to breaking the truth, but THIS IS BULLSHIT

As a person in a relationship. When its all get hard, we often said "how could he/she do that?  He's supposed to love me unconditionally."

OK, full stop.

First off, whenever I hear that someone is supposed to do anything in a relationship, an alarm goes off in my head. The phrase "supposed to" is basically the same as saying the word "should": it's a poisonous mindset word for relationships. It has a tone of blaming, shaming and coercing the other person to do what you want them to do... or else.

More importantly, when I heard She/he say that the partner supposed to "love unconditionally," I thought to myself, "Wait... do You seriously think that?"

Granted, I am very precise in the way I say things and how I use language.  So let's make clear what it means to do something "unconditionally"...

To do something unconditionally means that you do it without any criteria, conditions or expectations. In other words, if a man said that, means he was saying that he believed that "she's supposed" to "love him" no matter what he does or doesn't do, how he acts, etc.


He's essentially saying,

 "Welp, my job is done.  I'm in a relationship, she loves me, so I don't have to do anything... She will just love me forever and it doesn't matter if I stop doing the things that I used to do at the beginning of the relationship, please her in the ways I used to please her or act like the guy she fell in love with.  No need impression."

Sadly, our culture believes that! You think once you have a relationship, you can kick back and life somehow gets easier. You think You can get lazy and not worry about your relationship since that area is handled.


(And I'm not talking about just Man, I'm talking about everyone: men and women.)

I don't want to upset you.  I don't want to hurt your feelings.  And no, I don't believe that relationship success falls 100% on the woman or Man. All I know is that if you want success, then you deserve to know what will bring you success - someone needs to tell you the truth, even if it's unsettling sometimes.

Here's my point:  Relationships DO have conditions. Love might not, but relationship and attraction do.

Look, you selected each other based on criteria. There were conditions. 

I can't imagine that either you or your man just threw on a blindfold, pointed at a crowd of people and randomly chose each other. You met each other's conditions for a relationship partner and you expected that you would both continue to meet each other's conditions.

Yes, you love each other, but a relationship is more than just love. Relationships have conditions! The biological attraction has conditions!

Hate to be the one who breaks the bad news, but it's true... the good news is there's a much better approach to relationships that will work great for you...

A much more helpful view of relationships is that you are in service of one another.  The man you are with gives to you in loving service as best he can... and you give to him in loving service as best you can too.

That's much different than our culture's attitude of,

"Welp, I'm in a relationship now..  Glad that's handled - time to sit back and let a

lifetime of perfect love just effortlessly happen for me."

It sounds ridiculous when I say it outright like that, but that's the silent and deadly attitude most people have about love and relationships - like it's something you lock in and it's just handled, instead of an
ongoing constant... relationship.

I remember someone suggesting something excellent once that stuck with me
He spoke to an old man who had been married happily for 70 years or so.  And when he asked the old man his secret, the old man said,

"We just kept repeating the first 90 days of our relationship.  We never stopped 'dating' each other."

Damn! Amazing how simple is that?!

If you want the best relationship and love life possible, then...
The things that attracted you to each other at the beginning of your relationship should never stop.  The things that made you fall in love with each other should never stop.

Again, our culture has this weird idea that dating is meant to get someone on the hook and then once you've got them you can just be a slob afterward. And you might think that I sound jaded and cynical, but there's
a reason why most marriages end in acrimonious divorce today.

I need to say the hard truth!
Yes, obviously the man needs to be holding up his side of the relationship.  But every day you are in the relationship, you're choosing to be. 


She or He's not forcing you.  
They don't have a gun to your head.  
So if he's truly not servicing you in your relationship, you can leave...

But if you choose to stay with her/him... and you want the best love life and relationship possible... you need to look at a relationship as dating that person forever and being at your best, brightest, most attractive self in service of your relationship. When you come from that place in a relationship, that's when you start seeing him/her show up in the way that you remember her/him being at the beginning too.

Just so you know, I Forgive You.

Perhaps you didn’t know better, or maybe you did and did not care.

Perhaps it was true viciousness, or, as people told me after the fact, “Boys being Boys”. It didn’t seem that way, but who knows what was going on in your life? Maybe this is what you thought it was about. Maybe, given enough time, that was what I would have thought too. 

Perhaps you were hurting and you ended up don't realize you'll hurt me.

But we crossed paths, and since then I never quite knew such loneliness before.

It’s not just the things you would say to me, but the fact that everyone else seemed to agree. Everyone, including the adults, rushed to tell me: I was wrong to have my feelings hurt, that I should not be taking you seriously because you were young. Everyone seemed to defend what you were doing. and deep down I get it. you never meant to stay anyway.. you were just a phase, a chapter.

But It went against everything I knew. What happened to kindness, what happened to empathy? It seemed as though it didn’t matter at all. What mattered was how much you have liked yourself, and how many people you had on your side.

That mindfuck is not your fault, of course. That’s not what I’m forgiving you for.

I’m forgiving you for being cruel.

I’m forgiving you for taking out on me whatever it was that was torturing you at the time. your past hurt. or whatever it was.

I'm forgiving you for treating me as a punched bag, a spare, something that will fill your free time, at least till something better or new comes up.

I'm forgiving you for walked away before giving me fighting chance, just assumed I will be as demanding as your previous.

Mind, you probably don’t care one way or another. But then again, I’m not forgiving you for your sake. I’m doing it for mine.

I feel you.. maybe that was the reason I was so attracted to you.

I feel your pain somehow, and never once I thought someone that knew the pain of loss will cause it to another human being.

but, I forgive you anyway.

It’s taken me Months – and a trip to that bad place – to realize what you did had nothing to do with me. It was personal, but only in the most superficial of ways. The cruelty, the viciousness, that was all for you. 

I gave you an opening, and you went for the jugular.

Perhaps it was all you knew to do.

Perhaps you just wanted to do it.

It’s okay. I’m letting go of that hurt and self-doubt now.

I’m forgiving you for being you so that I can stand up and walk, instead of crawl, and help others walk too.

I forgive you.

Perhaps, in time, you will be able to forgive yourself, too. 

The Way I Missed You

Today was the first time in months that I could honestly say that I missed you. Not who I thought you were, and definitely not in a hateful “how-dare-he-break-my-heart” kind of way. It was more a “he-would’ve-loved-this” or a “he-used-to-do-that” kind of way. I know, it surprised me too.

I missed you in a way that it tensed every muscle in my body. In the way that it hurt so bad, yet when I remembered the way you look right before you kiss me, I warmed and every muscle in my body relaxed altogether.

I missed you in a quiet, internal bleeding kind of way. The kind where you don’t notice the pain until it’s unbearable, and you’ll definitely need a doctor. Surgery (and therapy), not optional.

I missed you in the way it feels to hold a warm cup of tea on a dark and rainy day. The kind of day where you cuddle up with all the blankets on the couch while pretending the rain isn’t pelting harshly against the windows. On the outside I was cold, but under all those layers, I felt warm like a sunny day.

I missed you like an inside joke with no one to share it with. It left me feeling empty and the joke completely meaningless.

I missed you in the mornings where I made myself scrambled eggs and tea. For some reason, no matter how hard I tried, I could never get them as good as yours. until I decided to stop making breakfast on my own.

I missed you when I knew that I would compare every gift to yours – and everyone to your thoughtfulness.

I missed you because I could remember everything. I remember the mornings I would wake up in your arms. I remember the way you looked when you kissed me.

I remember the way your eyes lit up when you were excited. I remember the way you smirked when you knew something I didn’t when you were trying to keep a secret. 

I remember how much you loved and were loved in return.

And for all these reasons and more, I remember how much I loved you.

But I also know that I don’t love you anymore, for all the things I can remember will never be enough to compensate for the fact that I don’t love you in that over-the-moon, burning, yearning, self-destructing kind of way. 

Not anymore.

Yet, it doesn’t hide the fact that there is a part of me still does love you – in a silent, secret, hidden away kind of way. And that’s okay, I think. And I think it’s okay that you don’t either.

I’m grateful for the time I had to get to know the person you hid from the rest of the world. I don’t think I could ever regret the person I became when I was with you.

But now I’ve become a whole new person. All on my own, complete and happy – without you. See, I told you I could do it. I never needed you, but boy, if only you’d known how much I wanted you.

And I hope one day if we ever meet again, I will be proud of me. Because I hope you know I am. Proud of me, I mean. And proud of you too, for everything you’ve wanted to do and have done, for everything you’ve accomplished and won. I know you’ve worked so hard to get to where you are now and, you and I both know how much you deserve it.

Much like how we both deserve to let each other go. I want to not miss you anymore. And I will.