relationship – Rosie Culture

The Pressure Of Being In A Relationship In Your 20’s

Every other week someone I know is getting engaged, buying a house, or getting married. When you’re in your twenties, there are three kinds of people in your friend group. The single ones, the ones who met their significant other in high school or college, and the ones who met their significant other after college or a little later in their twenties.

I’m 24 and any friend who met their love in high school or college are now engaged. I fall into the category of the ones who met their love after college, so I feel a little behind. I feel deeply for my single friends, because no matter how happy you are being single, you still feel left out sometimes.

Now I feel a lot of pressure being in a relationship in this stage of my life because everyone automatically expects that engagement and marriage are a few short years away.

But a little over a year ago I didn’t really believe in marriage. I didn’t want it, I didn’t want a relationship, and now while I’m in a relationship I’m still not 100% on board with the idea of marriage.

When I mentioned my boyfriend and I are planning on moving in together, I was asked if I thought a ring was in the future and I replied, “god, I hope not.”

I’m just not ready, but I feel a lot of pressure when a lot of people my age are ready and have been ready. It’s just what comes with my age. When you’re single in your twenties, you’re pressured to find a boyfriend. When you’re in a relationship in your twenties, you’re pressured to get engaged.

As much as I know what I want, it’s hard to ignore that nagging pressure.

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Relationships

When Is It Okay To Be Selfish?

When I was single, I decided that I was tired of being screwed over by putting other people first and getting nothing back. I decided that I needed to find my happiness alone and it wasn’t fair when people tried to get in the way and hinder that happiness. I decided to be selfish.

And it worked out so well for me. I became a healthier and happier person and didn’t let anyone get in my way. It was a couple of the best years of my life.

But now that I’m in a relationship, it doesn’t seem okay to be selfish anymore. Because when you care about someone, you want to do what you can for them and sometimes that means sacrificing things for yourself. But is that okay?

Or can we still be a little selfish. In the end, should we always put ourselves first? I feel like we should because when it comes down to it all, all we really have that is 100% guaranteed is ourselves. But then we feel bad for being this way. And how can you even be selfish when all you feel is guilty?

When you’re in a relationship, is it still okay to be as selfish as you were when you were single or should you really sacrifice some of your happiness for someone else’s?

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Relationships

Leaving The Honeymoon Phase

The beginning of a relationship is full of smiles, laughs, and eyes for only each other. There are barely any fights and all you want is to be with each other all the time. It’s the honeymoon phase and though I know some people stay in it forever, most of us leave it behind after a year or so.

I think it’s even possible for one person in the relationship to still be in the phase while the other person has left. It probably causes a lot of turmoil, possibly ends relationships. Because at that point you’re wanting different things and it’s hard to make people budge on where they spend their time and how moon-eyed they are about you.

Realizing you’ve left the honeymoon stage is tough, because now there are bigger things to tackle. Now there are fights, now there is real life in front of you. It’s not all rainbows and butterflies anymore. You’ve been together for a while and it’s potentially the real deal. It’s potentially the time you need to contemplate if this is for you or not.

It can be such a pivotal moment but also a time where most of us relax with courting our partners. Where we give way to life and just go with the flow. When I see you, I’ll see you. Apologies for having to cancel. No more surprises. Two minds that became one start to separate.

Leaving the honeymoon phase is probably one of the hardest parts of a relationship, it’s a true test. All you can do is evaluate where you want to be and who you want to be with and make sure your partner is on the same page. The phase will come in and out over time, you just have to make sure you want to stick around for the next honeymoon.

Photo by: http://www.christiancrush.com/relationships/couples-retreat-denver-co-colorado-springs-co.html

Break Ups

Do What You Have To After A Break Up

How do I know when a girl just went through a break up? She starts posting selfies, deep quotes and poetry, and sharing Thought Catalog articles about how being alone is better (at least share my blog posts guys, come on). And then all of her relationship pictures start to fade from her social media. Her profile picture changes to a solo pic or a photo of a girl’s night out. And the status quietly changes to single.

It’s all a little cliche. That whole dying your hair a wacky color after a break up to try to change your identity. People talk about it all the time and poke fun at the girls having their poetry induced break through. They talk about how much she’s changed and how funny it is that she never used to act that way.

Well, they change because break ups change you. They force you to look at yourself as a lone person and understand who you truly are. Maybe you are a blonde at heart, a party girl, or an independent being.

Who cares what anyone else thinks? As if they’ve never had a life shattering break up, as if they’ve never hit their single and ready to mingle phase.

We’re all guilty of it, and even if we weren’t, girl, DO YOU! Do what you have to to find yourself, to feel better and move on. If you have to make out with a lot of people, do it. If you have to talk crap on your ex, do it. If it makes you feel better I did it on a blog for all of the world to see, you can just do it in a group chat. Or start a blog. Why not?

If you have to share poetry about fueling your fucking fire, shout out Christopher Poindexter, then DO it. No one can tell you how to heal. Don’t ever feel silly about the things you are doing to better yourself and move on. I’m rooting for you and every girl who has had their life changed by a break up is rooting for you.

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Break Ups

Accepting Break Up Blame

I don’t like my exes, not a single one of them. My relationships/spurts of dating/long-time hook ups ended poorly often. I might’ve not liked them even before we broke up. Sometimes I stopped liking them during the break up process. Other times, we were friendly for a while, but I ultimately stopped liking them. Mostly due to resentment over any mistrust, being cheated on, or just seeing them be happy when they didn’t let me be happy or caused me to be unhappy for a while.

You may think that because I don’t like them, it probably means they did something wrong. And that’s true, but the bad blood doesn’t fall all on them. As much as I’d like to sit here and play victim, I wasn’t always innocent.

I didn’t cheat, I didn’t intentionally try to hurt people, but I did let things go on longer than they should’ve. I did put a lot of time into things I knew weren’t going to work, did act one way and say the opposite.

I accept some of the break up blame. In most cases, I did the breaking up because I either recognized my faults in the relationship or the guy I was dating at the time did something to screw everything up.

I’ve written a lot about my exes, I’ve written a lot about how much I resent them and how far I’ve come since them. But I’ve shrugged off a lot of the blame until now. I might’ve not been the problem that caused us to break up, but I was part of the problem. All I can do now is move on and grow from it and wish them all the best of luck.

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hernanpc/

Relationships

My New Relationship Feels Familiar

My current boyfriend reminds me of my ex boyfriend. There are a lot of similarities between the two relationships that my head almost spins sometimes because it seems so familiar.

And I was kind of worried about that because my old relationship ended in an all out war of who could make the other person feel worse. My old relationship was emotionally scarring and unstable. My old relationship left me broken and scared. My old relationship sucked.

I was sitting here thinking about how I would like a lizard as a pet, maybe my boyfriend and I could buy one together. But it feels a little weird to me because I used to have a lizard as a pet, my ex and I bought one together.

Coincidentally, both guys like lizards.

But it’s not a coincidence to like someone who has things in common with me. I felt all of these similarities between this relationship and an old one, but really the similarities just have to do with me. I’ve found someone like my ex because I’ve found someone who I have a lot in common with.

And just because they both liked sports, tattoos, lizards, and some other silly things, doesn’t mean that the relationship is the same. This relationship is safe, trusting, open, honest, and loving. My old relationship was full of distrust, anger, and emotional abuse.

Duh, I have a type. And this looming feeling of similarities doesn’t have to be looming at all. It’s actually really cool that I found someone that I have stuff in common with that I can have a healthy relationship with. I didn’t date my ex for four years for no reason, it was because we had similar interests and therefore we had fun together.

My new relationship kind of reminds me of an old relationship, but better.

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PostGrad

That Was So Long Ago

Are you one of those people that sometimes stays up until 2 AM and thinks about that really embarrassing time that you jumped off the swings in preschool and everyone saw your teddy bear underwear?

I am and that’s a true story.

I think about the sad, bad, embarrassing moments a lot of the time and work myself into an anxiety about it. I’ll stay awake until the sun rises over something that happened years ago.

And I wonder why I’m even thinking about it or why it still matters, but I am and it does. Even though I can’t do anything about it now.

I can’t do anything about it now. That’s what I tell myself every night when I’m thinking too much or on my drive home from work when I had a bad day. It’s time to start over, it’s time to wipe the slate, its time to forget about it and try harder tomorrow.

Sometimes I get anxiety when ex boyfriends try to contact me. Because every single relationship ended badly and every single guy reminds me of that. But why does it matter? Why do I care? It was so long ago. I can’t do anything about it now.

And that’s my mantra to my anxiety. It was so long ago. I can’t do anything about it now. It doesn’t always work, but I’m learning not to sweat the little things or the little people.

It was so long ago that I dated that frat boy and made a fool out of myself. It was so long ago that I shut out my family in high school. It was so long ago that I slipped and fell in the middle of the student center during the lunch rush. It was so long ago, I can’t do anything about it now. I can only try to grow and be better.

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