The Four Letter Word

How many people have you said "I love you" to? I believe I've said it to about four guys and two of those four times I probably confused love with lust. I told my current boyfriend within a matter of weeks that I loved him because he saw a beauty in me that I had never seen in myself. His eyes tore down my shield and detoured through my pain to my heart. I am currently in my most broken stage is my life emotionally and I know it cannot be easy for him with my mood swings and inconsistency, but the way that he looks at me never waivers. His eyes always say that he loves me.

I am the product of three physically and mentally abusive relationships and no matter how much I tried to push those memories to the back of my head they always remained at the forefront. One day I realized that those situations / relationships make me who I am and I have to accept them rather than forget them. I also realized that whatever mate that I would potentially be with would also have to accept them. Most people do not know about my abusive relationships or they only know a little because I've been ashamed to say that I've allowed myself to be pushed against walls, knocked down stairs, and locked in my room. How could an educated and career driven young woman succumb herself to so much damage?

I didn't know what love was, so I allowed people to love me in their own way which often was not love at all. I associated love with tolerance rather than admiration and understanding, so I desired to be tolerated rather than hugged. In 2 of the 3 situations, I was financially at my peak which also severely hindered my decision making. I had to either let go of my relationship and live paycheck to paycheck or just deal with it until I could better prepare myself financially. Financial stability has definitely been a blessing and a curse to me.

I'm not as whole as I once was. I have a couple scrapes and bruises that reveal my pain, but my boyfriend accepts them. He does not ridicule me for them or pour salt on them. He instead acknowledges them and makes every attempt he can to show me what love is.

I know that this is different from my past relationships because the only thing that he has asked of me has been for me to let him love him and y'all I'm trying.

Self - Evaluation

Yesterday, my boyfriend and I had our first real argument. When I say 'real' I mean raising our voices and speaking over one another in an effort for our points of view to be heard. Throughout our day yesterday we just could not get it together and I begin to ask myself "Is this really the one?" Towards the end of our day he treated me to pizza and tequila (two of my favorite things) and my selfishness did not allow me to accept his gesture. I felt confused and hurt and eventually just put my head down and allowed the tears to fall. I felt like he did not understand me but then he said, "Baby, I just want to show you how much I love you."

Prior to that moment, no one that I've ever been involved with had showed me so much compassion. His words definitely wiped my tears away and my anger towards him became anger towards myself. I begin to realize that I could be the reason why this relationship fails and it caused me to do a very close self-evaluation.

What I discovered about myself in that moment:  

1. I cannot let things go. Even though my boyfriend made several attempts to make our day better I still held on to my anger. I realize by doing that, I pushed him away which caused the friction that he was trying to eliminate to reoccur. 
2. I am an awful listener. I always want to ensure that I am being hard which often causes me to unintentionally ignore the other person's comments. I say unintentionally because I understand that in order to resolve a situation I have to listen, but I'm afraid that if I listen too much to them, then I won't get my point across. 
3. I allow my past to linger in my present. Many (if not all) of the issues that my boyfriend and I have been encountering have been due to unresolved issues from my past. He is the perfect guy, but the memories from my past force me to block him out every time he tries to get closer to my heart. 
4. I am an emotional wreck. I went from speaking calmly to yelling loudly and then crying in a matter of minutes. I sent my boyfriend on an emotional roller coaster (I apologized for this once we both were calm). I have to learn how to silent my emotions sometimes if I want to have a thorough and effective conversation with my boyfriend.

Examining yourself can be a hard thing to do because you have to pinpoint your flaws and admit that you are not as perfect as you thought that you were, but once you admit to having flaws you can work on them. One of the things that I love about my relationship is that my guy pushes me to better myself so we can have a better us and he also accepts my flaws. 

What Went Wrong? Part 2

In What Went Wrong? Part 1 I discussed my ex's  insecurities and the effect that they had on our relationship. In Part 2, I will discuss his lack of compassion.

I consider my daughter's father (we've been apart for about four years) as the first man that showed me no compassion. When we first started dating, I admired him and every thing that I did said that he was my king. Simply put, I was being submissive to him without any type of ring. No promise ring, no engagement ring, and definitely no wedding ring. Instead of him welcoming my affection and my admiration, he ridiculed me for displaying my emotions by making rude comments like "why are you on me" when I would try to cuddle with him and "go some where" when I would try to sit next to him.

When me and my most recent ex begin to date, he was compassionate and my heart begin to soften because I thought that he actually loved me like I loved him. I was WRONG! As our relationship progressed and we moved in together (a really bad move) his mask came off and I begin to see him for who he really was...a controlling and confident-less man.

Below are a couple eye opening situations that I experienced with him: 
1. He would say "I don't care how you feel" during arguments. Of course he would apolo-lie (a fake apology) after the argument, but those words stuck with me and the more he would say them, the more I believed that my feelings were not of his concern.
2. When I would break down and cry, he would say "Woman up" instead of embracing me and making an attempt to figure out what was wrong. My tears also appeared to fuel his anger towards me and as I witnessed this, my heart begin to harden again.
3. When I wasn't having sexual intercourse with him as often as he wanted me to, he would make statements like "Don't be mad if I have sex with someone else." Note: I was working 40 hours a week, taking care of my daughter, and I had just begin my master's program - BUT, I was still cooking every other day and thoroughly cleaning our house weekly. (That wasn't good enough though)

The above listed actions occurred repeatedly throughout our year long relationship and I stayed because I didn't want another failed relationship. I wanted that one to work so bad that I tolerated things that I knew I should have not tolerated.

 I was in love with being in love rather than in love with my mate.

What went wrong? Part 1

I try to learn from every situation (especially unfavorable ones), so when I end a relationship I ask myself "What went wrong?" In my last relationship my mate and I had trust issues that were watered by social media. Given, we met one another with open sores and I am not blaming social media for reopening those sores, but it definitely had a toll on our relationship. One of the first things that we agreed upon early on in our relationship was that neither one of us would have any form of social media access. (I agreed to this more to satisfy him than to actually compromise which posed greater issues) I stayed true to my end of the agreement until I felt the relationship coming to an end. (Yes, I reopened my Instagram account and posted a picture with the caption "back from hiatus.")

This is what I learned:

1. Do not agree to do things just to please your mate because you will either intentionally or unintentionally hold this decision over their head. I would always tell my mate "I did all of this for you" or "this is the least you can do for me since I did that for you." Simply put, it caused many arguments. 

2. If your mate has trust issues, there is nothing you can do to change that. Your mate's trust issues were probably formed prior to you meeting them and they have to face those issues on their own. I allowed my ex to keep many tabs on me because I thought that it would make him feel more comfortable, but nothing was ever enough because his internal issues were the cause of his trust issues. 

3. Verbal contracts are bonding and if you and your mate never revisit a topic and decide together that altering a prior agreement is okay, then stay true to your end of the contract. If you sign a leasing agreement, you cannot paint rooms without the leaser's consent, but if you do you risk being kicked out. When you make decisions without consulting your mate, you are risking being kicked out of your relationship. 

4. Do not base your decisions on the assumption that the relationship is about to be over. A relationship is not over until both parties agree that it is over. I reactivated my Instagram because the relationship was at its end, but I had yet to tell my mate so because of this unnecessary tension formed in my relationship. I did a single-minded act even though my leasing agreement was not up. 

...TO BE CONTINUED. 

What is the neutral ground?

In New Orleans, we refer to the median as the neutral ground. The median or "the neutral ground" is a strip of land that splits a street into two sides. 

I do not fit into any of the categories that society has predestined for me, so I metaphorically stand on the neutral ground. 

I am an educated, motivated and passionate twenty-something single mom who resides in New Orleans that aims to remind women of their power and to help them see their potential by sharing stories about my life.