I don’t know everything. But I know a little.
34 years has shoved a sizable piece of the life experience/relationship pie down my throat. What I know is from personal experience, including multicple online dating affairs - what I divulge I’ve seen firsthand in some form or another.
Whether it is heartbreak, humiliation, game-playing, great sex ending in regrettable decisions or extreme pride and egoism, I’ve sat here and gnawed on my own ass and spat it out more times than I’m proud to admit.
I’ve drank the cyanide-laced relationship koolaid, played so many games I could give ESPN a run for their money and I’ve gotten back the resulting karma to boot tenfold. I’ve been a relationship martyr and a fool- and that has given me the distinction of knowing when it’s time to get out.
As soon as a relationship isn’t good for us anymore, we know it. It’s unmistakable. It’s simply a matter of taking that knowledge at face value and using it as the much needed ammunition to pack up, throw these toolbags the relationship middle finger and keep on moving.
So how do you know when it’s time to quit?
“It’s just not worth the effort anymore. Or never was.”
Tidbits, table scraps, leftovers and needles floating in the haystack leads to unmet expectations and a signed in blood relationship death sentence.
People make the effort when it means something to them- when it is truly valuable and important.
Sticking your finger in the dike and praying for a miracle sandwich from sawdust is a joke. And unfortunately, according to the other guy, the joke my friend, is on you.
So what constitutes tidbits, table scraps and leftovers?
No effort being made showing sincere interest – i.e. lazy texting, “missed” phone calls and emails, no concrete plans being made to see you and an overwhelming sense of “in the dark” ambiguity about the relationship overall.
If there can be nothing derived from the relationship but the absolute bare minimum, it isn’t a relationship worth having.
Desperate measures include any and all of the following:
a) I’ll fix myself for you syndrome
“I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you. I’ll get my teeth fixed. I’ll dye my hair blonde. I’ll lose weight. I’ll get my boobs done. I’ll…”
“Fixing” yourself isn’t going to fix anything. You’re not broken, the relationship is. And if you’ve arrived at this point of desperation it’s suffice to say the relationship was broken long before you ever decided to bank on this extreme form of self-deprecating lunacy.
b) I’ll purse my lips to your rear end until you acquiesce to seeing that I really am a great person
“I’ll rub your feet, do your laundry, cook your breakfast and wipe your butt. I’ll pay your light bill and house note and allow you access to my life savings. And in the meantime, I’ll be in denial enough to actually sit here and believe that what I’m doing is laudable and trust you won’t end up taking me for a ride.”
You shouldn’t have to go above and beyond to convince the person you’re with of your worth. If they don’t know what you’re worth, no amount of conforming, butt kissing or special occasion fellatio techniques is going to make them see it, much less acknowledge it. In fact, the more you give, the more they’ll take, not before stomping your head into the ground while jerking off and laughing about it all the way to the bank.
Kissing butts eventually leads to kissing you goodbye- once and for all.
c) I’ll pretend that what is happening isn’t happening because I’m too scared to make any concessions or demands because they’ll be too taxing on the relationship
Denial is desperation. It is an extreme act of avoiding responsibility. Burying your head in the sand and waiting in vain isn’t going to make the problem up and float away like a duck feather caught in the Alabama wind.
If you are ignoring something out of denial and a false sense of self-preservation, you’d be wise to declare yourself on relationship life-support and sign the consent form to pull the plug. Running your fingers along the relationship distress button without having the guts to press it means you’ve lost complete control. It’s only a matter of time before the problems compound and explode into irreparable mayhem- getting left balls out vulnerable/all we are is dust in the wind.
“It just isn’t fun anymore.”
When you are suffering more than you are smiling, you are operating in relationship red. When you are putting in more than you are getting in return, you are operating in the negative. When you are hurting more than you are happy, you have already filed Chapter 11 relationship bankruptcy.
When the bad outweighs the good, it’s time to get back to operating in the black and move onto greener pastures. No amount of personal suffering is going to make a relationship work. When it feels like relationship hell, make no mistake, you’re the one who’s getting burned.
Ambivalence is a very powerful thing. To love someone dearly and hate their guts at the same time is like eating half the chocolate cake and waking up the next day a corpse bloated to the gills. You loved the cake and savored every bite, yet you hate what you did and how disgusted it made you feel.
Where’s the reward in that? And more importantly, wherein lies the dignity and sense of normalcy? An extreme relationship is never a healthy one and dangling on both sides of the extreme is burning the candle at both ends- guaranteed to burn out into nothing.
Tightrope walking without a net and teetering alongside an unlit fuse of anger, rage, insecurity, jealousy, anxiety and grossly misguided interpretations of blind relationship faith isn’t a healthy relationship.
You have to be able to live with the entire person for the relationship to have much more than a snowball’s chance of surviving- and the other person has to actually want you to play an active role in their life and more importantly, want to work alongside you to make it happen.
It’s time to get out when you are left unfulfilled, bordering on clinically insane or feel that your efforts don’t match up with the results. Life is too short to keep getting played like a fiddle. If you want a gamble, try your odds at partybingo.com and spare yourself the emotional turmoil.You owe it to yourself, and that special someone who actually wants to be in your life so much more than that.
Your thoughts?