Relationships 101

[IsabellaRose]

I'm relatively new to actual adult relationships.

Prior to this I've been emotionally unavailable and relationships were just... well, frankly they were comically shallow and meaningless extended affairs with people about whom I truly did not care. I told myself and them all kinds of lies, but any time actual emotional connections loomed I would find a way to walk, run, or explode. I sabotaged every single relationship I ever had (including friendships) except two. One was a romantic relationship, one was a friendship. The romance ended badly, the friendship faded due to distance and lack of even a modicum of effort on my part. 

So now I'm in a relationship. An adult like one. An actual happy one. It's taken me years to be comfortable enough with who I am and who I love to make this a reality. But it's so real now. It's so frighteningly honest and true and filled with all the things people say they want. And it terrifies me. The more I do the "right" things, the more I share, the more I give, the more I get in return and everything I could ever hope for happens, the more scared I get, because I ruin everything I touch, and if this is real and really what it feels like (which it is, I just always doubt the obvious) then I could lose it and after everything else, losing this would end me. I could never be a person again. I know that sounds melodramatic, but... this. This is it.

How do I do this right? How do I keep it alive and real and keep myself from messing it up? How do I relationship?

I know it's dumb. She loves me. I love her. I just have to keep doing what I've been doing and be honest and trust her and love her and let her love me, but... I'm so frightened of doing something wrong. I can't get it out of my head. So in the long run, I guess it's not "how to relationship" as much as it's "how to get over my fear of messing up this relationship."

Does anyone have advice? 

[Azalyn]

Listen to your heart. You'll know the right thing(s) to do when the time comes. The fact that you're reaching out and wanting advice speaks volumes that you genuinely care and want things to work. That is important.

[Pixel]

You've already answered your question here. You know how things were compared to how they are now. You've known many people, but this one is your person.

if there's one thing I know, it's that you're incredibly intelligent. 

You know what you're doing. You're right. Keep doing it.

[Minorikawa]

Quote

How do I do this right? How do I keep it alive and real and keep myself from messing it up? How do I relationship?

I know it's dumb. She loves me. I love her. I just have to keep doing what I've been doing and be honest and trust her and love her and let her love me, but... I'm so frightened of doing something wrong. I can't get it out of my head. So in the long run, I guess it's not "how to relationship" as much as it's "how to get over my fear of messing up this relationship."

So, I've spent more of my life single than I have in relationships, and the last one I had was a long time ago. I've had to do a lot of growing and growing up since then, and honestly, I'm still pretty darn stunted for a man my age. I'm not exactly qualified to give you specific advice, but, one thing that I've learned from my own experiences and from watching the few successful relationships around me gets to the heart of this.

Firstly, you're both going to screw up. It's inevitable. At some point you're going to get into an argument about something and make each other mad. At some point one of you is going to do something unintentional that's going to have a negative impact on the other. The longer the relationship goes, and the more serious it becomes, the more inevitable disagreements and clashes are.

It's not the end of the world. The problem is, which is going to be more valuable to you: your individual sense of self, or the sense of your unification. I feel like it flies against what a lot of modern discussion about individuality says, but when you're in a relationship – a real, adult relationship – you become a single unit. You're no longer two individuals. The more you insist on seeing yourselves as separate individuals, the more difficult it will be to solve the dilemmas that result from mistakes, misunderstandings, and disagreements. Every single relationship I've seen that's failed, every marriage I've seen that's a disaster or ended in divorce, it was because each individual found their own sense of self-preservation more valuable than the preservation of the relationship. They were more concerned about feeling right or being angry about feeling wronged that they never stopped to consider their partner, or never stopped to consider what they would need to sacrifice.

Because a relationship requires sacrifice from both parties, and sometimes that sacrifice sucks. But if you really value that relationship over yourself, then together you will receive greater rewards for it. At least, that's what I've seen in the couples willing to set their own pride aside to keep the relationship running.

I know you mentioned being open and honest with your partner, but in case you haven't been yet, be sure to be open about this concern, too. Let them know you have this fear. That way, if there is a mistake made one day, both parties are better prepared to work through it.

[bumpnrun]

I have little to add, but love can't exist without submission. Sometimes it's as simple as, would you rather be happy or right. My experience has been that submission within the context of love often makes the other person even more giving. I hope this makes sense.

[Warning]

One thing I can say is... It's okay to be paranoid at times. You just must not let it overcome you. You were the one who showed me how much of a wise person you can be not long ago but everyone can feel vulnerable at one time or another and it's alright. I think this should even be easier in your situation because you both love each others. Being worried happens but don't let fear be your guide. We all know how that ended for, well, you know. Allow yourself to enjoy your happiness if happiness is what you live right now. You worry because you fear losing it. It's okay.

As Pixel said, you're intelligent. I'll tell you an advice that would normally apply to me but... Do your best to remain level headed. I know you will do just fine. Don't ask yourself what you could be doing wrong. Do not plant the seed of worries into your mind. IF you have a valid concern that maybe you're not doing something right, you can always try and discuss it with your partner. Otherwise, you sound like someone who will be just fine, really. I don't feel anyway that you're ruining everything that you're touching. I don't know all about you but you're doing good.

[IsabellaRose]

Thanks everyone. Truly, thank you all, from my heart. 

I think I just need encouragement when I get down, when I hit my lows and the dark creeps back in.

I know that we both want it to work enough that we're willing to lose parts of ourselves, our egos, our "being right", to maintain what we have. Me alone, no matter how important my independence is to me, is less than me with her, and I have to remember that. There is nothing about me that is not improved for having her in my life. It sounds cheesy but it's true. I've been honest with her. She knows my fears. She also knows about my low periods when the pendulum swings toward depression, so she expects these times of uncertainty on my part. I shouldn't worry but my brain does it's thing, no matter how many years of therapy or which meds I'm on. 

[Azalyn]

9 minutes ago, IsabellaRose said:

Thanks everyone. Truly, thank you all, from my heart. 

I think I just need encouragement when I get down, when I hit my lows and the dark creeps back in.

I know that we both want it to work enough that we're willing to lose parts of ourselves, our egos, our "being right", to maintain what we have. Me alone, no matter how important my independence is to me, is less than me with her, and I have to remember that. There is nothing about me that is not improved for having her in my life. It sounds cheesy but it's true. I've been honest with her. She knows my fears. She also knows about my low periods when the pendulum swings toward depression, so she expects these times of uncertainty on my part. I shouldn't worry but my brain does it's thing, no matter how many years of therapy or which meds I'm on. 

It's understandable and completely acceptable to need encouragement. You're human, and falling into the dark is hard to get out of sometimes when you're alone.

Improving yourself is never "cheesy." Growth is amazing in all its ways, whether that be with someone or on your own. I wholeheartedly believe that things will work out for you and her. You both seem deeply connected to each other, and that's something not a lot of relationships (that I've seen) have. 

If you ever need that push or need some advice, I and many others are more than willing to give it to you. 

[Pixel]

11 hours ago, IsabellaRose said:

Thanks everyone. Truly, thank you all, from my heart. 

I think I just need encouragement when I get down, when I hit my lows and the dark creeps back in.

I know that we both want it to work enough that we're willing to lose parts of ourselves, our egos, our "being right", to maintain what we have. Me alone, no matter how important my independence is to me, is less than me with her, and I have to remember that. There is nothing about me that is not improved for having her in my life. It sounds cheesy but it's true. I've been honest with her. She knows my fears. She also knows about my low periods when the pendulum swings toward depression, so she expects these times of uncertainty on my part. I shouldn't worry but my brain does it's thing, no matter how many years of therapy or which meds I'm on. 

It isn't cheesy, that's how love and a partnership is supposed to be.

[IsabellaRose]

21 minutes ago, Pixel said:

It isn't cheesy, that's how love and a partnership is supposed to be.

This stuff is new to me. Everything before has been... well, honestly it's been mutual or one-sided using someone to get what you want. Feelings weren't a part of it, at least not deep feelings. It was purely transactional. It's kind of like someone took off a blindfold I didn't know I was wearing and showed me the world for the first time and suddenly I can see all the things I heard about and had explained to me before. Intellectually I understood what people were saying, but that's so different from the actual experience. 

I feel embarrassed? foolish? sad even, being thing old and never having really experienced romantic love before, at least not for real. I thought I knew, but... this is a new level. And not just love, because I have felt that, but the reciprocation, the communication, the give and take, the sharing, the compromise, the... good stuff. Even though I know what I have, that we are both so committed to making it work and have already been through some tough times that tried us and proved we can do it... despite that there's this little part of me that keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. Some nagging, annoying voice in the back of my mind keeps telling me I'm not good enough, I don't deserve this, and it's all going to fall apart. 

Objectively, I know better. As long as we're both honest and willing to work together to make it work, it will work. I just need that voice to shut up and leave me alone.

[bumpnrun]

I think you are lucky. Even though it may seem that love has come later in life, I think there are many that never experience what you now have. Love is messy, it is never easy, that's what makes it so worthwhile.

[Gidgy]

Sometime when it quiets in your head and heart you should maybe take some time to figure outs who you ares. And who you are becoming. Relationship is all about who you are with somebody or somebodies, but this part is just you. And you has to do it alone. Once you know who you are, and I not mean who you tells other people you are, not who you wish you was, or who you hope to becomes, but who you are. The good, the bad, the parts you hope find a ways to change some day.

Then you gots two more things to do.

First you gotta never compromise on who you are. No relationship, no matter how goods it feels or how goods it is should asks or makes you sacrifice who you ares. If she the right one for you, then she not doing this now. But she will. Someday she will and you gotta knows who you are so when that day come you can says no. Failing in this is how you loses yourself in a relationship and that always go badly, even if you does it for all the best of reasons.

Now that you knows who you are and you can tells yourself apart from who you are with her, you gotta finds a way to love the person you are. Love for the good. Love for the bad. Love for the parts you hope change some day. Cause here the reality -- you not deserves to be loved. You never did. You dinna earn it. Ever. You not ever have to work at it to deserve to be loved. Cause you don't deserve it. It not that you dinna deserve love it that it's always undeserved. You're loved cause you're loved. And that's all there ever was and all there ever will be. And it's enough. And it's beautifuls.

In the words of the smartest lady I knows, Ru Paul, "If you can't love yourselfs, how the hell are you gonna loves somebody else?"

So I repeats cause I don't want nobody to miss it:

1. Know yourselfs

2. Love yourselfs

Then the fun parts. Loves somebody else and love em HARD. Cause they not deserve it eithers and they never needed to. Loving like that leaves a marks. 

You got this Miss Izzy.

 

[IsabellaRose]

You are wise, @Gidgy. Step 1 & 2 of what you just said are two things I've been working on with my therapist for years. Thank you