After turning 17 and graduating from high school, I entertained the idea of MAYBE getting married, then once I was at college for a year, I once again swore off the idea. I had plans for myself, and none of them included a man.
After dating Terry on and off and on and off again for a year, I told him I would marry him. That is one of my biggest regrets in life. I knew I never wanted to marry him, and I knew I probably never would. it wasn't fair to him or myself, but I loved the attention, albeit most of the attention was negative, but it was attention nonetheless. The relationship ended badly, though I don't know how else it could have or would have ended.
After Terry, I once again swore off marriage. I was alone and I was happy. I went to New Zealand, graduated university, started my first "real" job, had my first house, lived on my own, all by myself, and I was happy.
When I met Chris, I figured it would never evolve into much more than a platonic friendship. He would be someone my age to do things with outside of my job. But we fell in love, hard and fast.
Considering how small Yuma was, there wasn't much else to do. Chris and I were at each others house daily, making dinner, playing games, or watching movies. It broke up the monotony of my day-to-day and I looked forward to talking to someone other than pubescent tweenagers.
We decided we were going to get married in January and he proposed in April. Because we didn't want to live together before we were married, we got married 4 months later.
It's really hard for me sometimes, because I was so happy being alone, and sometimes being married is so hard, that I question why I ever got married in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret marrying Christopher, but being married is hard.
Lately I have really reflected as to why it is so hard for me to be with someone else, and I think I have pinpointed it to a few reasons.
First of all, I have never seen a healthy relationship. What does one look like? How do they communicate? How do they work together? My parent's marriage was all about lies and deceit. Each of them were on their own boat paddling in different directions of each other away from the island in the middle of nowhere. It was always my mom expressing how she was a better parent than my dad, and my dad telling us not to tell mom. Mom pretending to care but really only ever caring about herself and how she appeared to others. The more I look at our family/home life the more I realized how unhealthy it really was.
My parents never taught me how to properly resolve conflicts. All I ever saw was yelling and screaming when one or the other of them was upset. I don't know how to calmly and rationally express how I'm feeling, because I was never taught, and I definitely never saw it.
I'm not making excuses, merely I am admitting my own faults. I see my weaknesses, and I know how they came about, what I don't know is how to "fix" it. I don't know how to communicate my feelings other than shutting down or exploding. That's all I know how to do.
I feel bad that Chris has to deal with me in my broken state. He is so patient and kind and forgiving when I get into my little ... moods, and he never wants to give up and leave. I offer to leave him almost daily so he doesn't have to deal with me any more, but he never takes me up on my offer. I know I need to get better, I need to figure out how to better myself, how to rationalize my feelings, and how to express them in a more mature way, but I don't know how.
When I get in these ...moods, it's basically to a point of no return. I have to let it run its course before I can get back to normal. I have been this way for as long as I can remember, and it's never really been a big deal until now. Now I see it affecting the one I love more than anything in this world. I lash out against him and I hurt him more than I help him, and it's really not fair to him, but I don't know what to do so I no longer hurt him.
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