There are times in my life when I catch myself being a bad person. When my gossiping goes too far and I begin telling people things I REALLY shouldn’t. When I carelessly make jokes about other people’s insecurities to try and get a laugh from others. Or most recently, when I lose control of my emotions with my boyfriend because he wasn’t being exactly who I wanted him to be.
I am by no means a relationship expert. I have had 4 ‘serious’ boyfriends in the past 6 years but my current relationship has lasted the longest. I feel as though I spend a huge chunk of my time complaining to other women about my guy, even if he has spent the week being nothing but nice to me. He is a really good match for me – something confirmed to me by my mum who always knows – and yet I seem to spend my time searching for faults with him.
Over the weekend it was my boyfriends birthday. He hadn’t really been looking forward to it regardless of my building it up to be a big deal. Girls, in my experience, care more about being made a fuss of on their birthday than men do! We had gone out for a meal with his friends (4 guys) who I get on with well enough but tend to annoy me when I don’t have another girl around rolling their eyes with me. I had a good time but my BF wasn’t feeling too well so he dipped a bit and got grumpy, which I ignored because it was his birthday. We went to the pub after the meal and met up with other people, including some girls thankfully, and we split off and spent time with our own groups. And then something happened…. I don’t know why but something in me turned on my BF. He was off having a nice time with his friends and I suddenly felt this irritation that very rapidly turned into rage bubbling up inside me. All the tiny things that he had done that day that had annoyed me joined together and became this irrational monster that broke out of its cage. I ended up dragging my girlfriends upstairs and bursting into tears exclaiming that I couldn’t POSSIBLY be with someone that would be grumpy with me in front of his friends! Where does that even come from? I will be honest, I had just hit my time of the month but I didn’t know that at the time, but I had had this same rant a million times before regardless of my menstrual cycle.
I was angry with him all night and it probably ruined his birthday, which was a realisation I had when I woke up. Now 2 days later I am still riddled with guilt over how I acted and I have been trying to work out why it happened. I think I fell into the trap that many women fall into. My expectations are unrealistically high. I have spent nearly 2 years trying to improve my BF by moulding him into my own idea of Prince Charming. I tell him to stop making so many disgusting jokes, to stop socially smoking, to stop acting like a child when he is with his friends. The list goes on. I have seen other women have the same lengthy list as I do. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t expect men to adapt to being with us, flexibility is important in a relationship but the question is, is it treated as a one-way street? Do we expect people to change so much so that we are able to stay the same? I didn’t alter my behaviours much while in this relationship but my BF has done a lot of maturing and I am rushing him toward some imaginary finish line on perfection.
I have promised him to be more mindful of my responses in the future and it is something we are going to have to discuss on a regular basis to keep on the same page.
Just something to think about for the day.
tomorrow's problem 