Lending Hand here. I wanted to give a chance for one of my loyal readers to give their perspective on what failed relationships cost you. This blogger, who shall remain anonymous, is someone who has been through the toughest of tough relationships and still came out on top.
Her story is one to look up to, as it happens to many of my readers. When you fail and fall down, get back up. But get up, understand your faults, and get better. Her experiences have allowed her to realize what she needs/needed to do to move on and move forward...
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When the proposition of writing a guest blog for the Lending Hand presented itself, I was simultaneously excited and terrified. Brainstorming this entry made me realize just how little I know and understand about men, women, and relationships in general.
As a newly single 27-year-old, I realized that I have absolutely no advice to lend to the population about how to conduct a successful relationship. Truth be told, it's kind of depressing!
Either way, here it goes.
The two long term relationships I've been in have gone down in flames. None of those mutual "the timing was wrong" type of endings here. My mom once told me that you can judge the quality of a relationship by the way it ends. For example, if the breakup was bad, most likely the relationship was too.
If we're to believe dear old Mom, that would mean the only two relationships I've ever had were terrible ones. Which leads me to this---the only thing I really know about relationships is what not to do and how not to act. These things are, incidentally, exactly what I always do and how I always act when I am in a relationship! Ah ha! We've stumbled on my area of relationship expertise.
The cardinal sin that I committed in both of these relationships, was approaching them as a jobs. Not in the sense that I viewed them as something that took up a lot of time and required energy to maintain—but in the sense that I literally approached my boyfriends as projects that required teaching and coiffing to properly prepare them to be the perfect boyfriends of tomorrow.
The problem with this approach is--- although they'll usually learn a lot from you, and after all is said and done, they are a better person because of you, you won't reap the benefits. The fruits of your labor will almost always be enjoyed by their next girlfriend, with whom they will have a successful, mutually respectful relationship.
In addition, your "project boyfriend" will never see you as an equal (because they assume that you don't see them as such) and in his eyes you will turn into his mother—which is not sexy, no matter what Freud thinks.
Who wouldn't want a beautiful woman who cleans up after you, does your laundry, lends helpful advice, interests themselves in your interests, focuses entirely on you?
The truth is, every man WOULD want this in moderation—but making someone else your life, your project, and your only concern is impossible to keep under control, and inevitably it becomes all-consuming. Before you know it, it has consumed any semblance of mutual partnership you ever had.
My theory, that this was the appropriate way to approach a relationship, or treat a person, was based on the misguided thought that any person would appreciate you pouring your heart into the sole task of their betterment. When I think it through in hindsight, if someone did this to me I would most likely be insulted that they didn't think I was capable of being good at anything on my own.
This entry has been decidedly self-critical, and perhaps the only thing you'll take away is that I will never have a successful relationship. However, I believe there is something to be gained. Never lose yourself in a relationship. You'll look back when it's over (and it will be over) and you'll realize that you spent years helping and bettering someone, and that someone was not you. Like me, when you lose yourself and focus on the other, you'll never get that wonderful feeling that they made you a better person, because they didn't---you didn't give them a chance.
- Guest Blogger
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