Tag: relationship advice

Sometimes “Yes Dear” Isn’t the healthiest thing for your relationship

I know in past relationships, I’ve done this and it’s a real problem.

Like sometimes you squish bits of yourself in on yourself to make room for your partner, and if you keep on doing that, sometimes they just get more and more used to being accommodated and your partner starts to think “if they’ll give up so much to keep the peace they must not mind/must not be any good” and they keep asking you to squish yourself more and more until eventually they ask you to squish down some part of you you can’t squish and you can’t and by that time they’re so used to you being moldable to their needs that the whole thing breaks down

15 Signs Your Relationship Isn’t Working

  1. They’ve got shifty eyes
  2. You find a horse in the stable where your horse oughta be.  
  3. They explain the horse away as a milk cow.
  4. IDK screaming? 
  5. They tell you “I think this relationship isn’t working”
  6. Uncontrollable itching
  7. “Here I Go Again On My Own” by White Snake playing constantly in the background
  8. They correct your pronunciation of hasenpfeffer
  9. A flock of ravens passing westward over your house
  10. Your orchard blooms out of season
  11. Roosters laying eggs
  12. Old women cross themselves when you pass by
  13. The well goes dry
  14. Bad harvest
  15. You can’t stop reading these goddamn stupid listicles about whether or not your relationship is working.

A Few Things They Don’t Tell You About Love

  1. It’s not enough on it’s own, you can love someone to the moon and it doesn’t make you compatible.
  2. Even a good partner will make you cry, they’ll never do it on purpose, but humans are clumsy oafs, and one day they’ll say the wrong thing because they were distracted trying to find their shoelace and your feelings will be deeply hurt and they’ll apologize and mean it, but everyone fucks up and if you can’t deal with fuck ups, you can’t deal with people.
  3. It’s been repeated a million times, but it’s not going to save you, or them, and you really really need to understand that.  Love is wonderful and transcendent but it’s not your savior and it’s not your meaning in life.
  4. Being someone’s whole world is shitty and exhausting.  
  5. You need more than each other, like friends, and books and a sense of purpose.  You can’t be each other’s whole purpose in life because that’s just circular and weird and if one of you is the other’s purpose in life and not the other way round that gets real ugly real fast.
  6. If it’s easier to die for em’ than live with em, you may love em’ but you’re not suited.
  7. Destroying yourself for someone else isn’t romantic.  Like sacrificing yourself in very VERY rare situations is… sort of, but what’s more romantic is coming up with a way to save you both.
  8. The idea that there is one true perfect love for you is fucking up your relationships and it’s not even that romantic.  Cause like which is more romantic, their being some preordained perfect love with whom everything is simple and easy and you never have to put any effort in because if you did it would mean it’s not perfect and so you should move on to someone else, or two humans who meet and fall in love and choose to be together and compromise and deal with each other even when it’s hard or they’re grouchy and accept clashes and rough edges and just keep being with each other even though there are other options because they love each other.
  9. Sometimes communicating will be hard and you will have to work at it.
  10. Your partner, provided they are not asexual, will probably masturbate.  It’s really really common. It’s probably something you need to be okay with them doing.
  11. No matter how much you love them if the porn they like upsets you, you’re not suited to each other.
  12. Common interests are important, but don’t expect your partner to share all your interests, but it’s good to take an interest in each other’s interests.  Example: my mom LOVES textiles.  My dad finds hearing my mom talk about textiles interesting even though they’re not a huge interest of his on his own. Similarly, WWII is not a pet subject of mine, but it’s a pet subject of D’s and I find hearing D talk about it interesting.  That said my mom can’t stand scifi (which my dad LOVES) but does take an interest in his interest in philosophy, and my dad can’t sit still to watch TV shows or movies generally.  D doesn’t like detective stories on D’s own, but will take an interest in my interest in them, but generally hates perfume.  I hate incredibly bleak Russian dramas (which D loves) but I respect them and we have a lot of other stuff in common and that’s what’s important.
  13. D is the love of my life, a passion for the ages, but here’s the thing with calm, lasting love, it’s not that it’s not as deep or passionate, it’s more that after a certain point you don’t actively feel the emotional intensity of it constantly anymore, because it’s not under threat.  Shitty “breakup-get back together” not actually suited to one another relationships often feel emotionally intense because they’re always under threat from their own internal instability.  Now, the instant something were to threaten my relationship with D, all those big operatic emotions would come bursting forth and I would climb oceans and swim mountains (and yes, I do mean climb oceans and swim mountains, because that’s harder) if I had to, because I love D with every fiber of my being, but day to day?  Those big passionate emotions are quiet because they’re not needed.  It’s not that they’re not there, they’re just not being called upon to keep us together because we don’t torture each other.
  14. You gotta accept them, and they’ve gotta accept you, and you’ve both got to try and make allowances for each other.  I accept that D will never put the sugar away, and D accepts that I will strew random garments in random places forever.  That said D tries to remember to put the sugar away and I try not to strew so many garments in so many places.
  15. You’re gonna have fights, but if you’re suited they’re not usually going to be super ugly, so like disagreement, irritation and maybe some raising of voices, but no personal attacks and no insults aside from “You’re being an asshole” maybe occasionally.
  16. You’ve gotta respect them, and their beliefs and those beliefs won’t always be the same.  D and I are very much the same politically and our religious beliefs don’t conflict in ways that bother us, but for example I believe in absolute morality, and D doesn’t… that said in practice we’re morally similar but the way we get there is different.  I respect D’s way of getting there and D respects my way of getting there.
  17. Sometimes you are both going to have the flu and it is going to totally suck.
  18. Sometimes your partner is going to majorly put their foot in their mouth with your friends and you are going to have to stand by them because you want them to do the same when you inevitably put your own foot in your mouth.
  19. Alright, so if you’ve ever had roommates you know how even someone who’s super cool is going to do occasional stuff that drives you up the wall, just by virtue of sharing your space with them?  Imagine that, but you’ve also let them into the deepest recesses of your emotional self and share one of the most intense intimacies people can share… yeah, sometimes they are really really going to get on your nerves.
  20. When they’re suited to you, it is SO, SO, SO worth it.