What my 6 week courtship taught me about myself

I have written in an earlier post about a person that I met on a dating app. My hopes when meeting this person was that he would be my last relationship. To read the post click here

Well so much for all the things I’ve learned and believed about finding love from fairy tales and Romantic Comedies.

This finding love thing is more complicated. More than just wanting to be in a relationship, walks in the park and talking on the phone for hours at a time.

It’s the little things (that are really land mines) I overlook when I like someone that end up blowing my relationship fantasies to smithereens.

I’m not ashamed of the truths that I’m about to reveal about myself. I’m actually proud that it only took me 6 weeks to get out of this situation rather than the year and a half it took me to get out of my last relationship.

The things that I have learned from the past 6 weeks are a direct reflection of unresolved issues I still hold about myself that are embedded deep down inside of me.

1.) There is still residue from a past abusive relationship that has me afraid to speak up for myself when I need to.

I don’t say what I need to say in the moment. I overthink what I want to say and how I want to say it, and when I do speak up what comes out is a watered down ambiguous statement that has lost all impact, meaning and is often misinterpreted.

2.) I move to fast. I want to go from 0 to relationship in 9.5 seconds flat.

I really didn’t want to own this about myself and I tried to justify it by attributing my over zealousness to being a grown a$$ woman who knows what she wants.

A question I have to ask myself (and explore with a therapist) is why is the process of getting to know someone to see if they are worthy of getting into a relationship with so hard for me?

I’ll admit that the not knowing where I stand and the ambiguity involved in developing a new relationship brings up feelings of abandonment.

When I’m in this space I revert to that nine year old girl who had just lost her father to cancer, and had her core foundation shifted.

3.) I don’t stay in the present.

I’m so focused on the end result that I’m not paying attention to the process or noticing the red flags waiving vigorously before my face. It’s so stress inducing it takes all the enjoyment out of the courtship.

4.) I still don’t trust my own intuition. I know what I know when I know it.

I’ve never been wrong when I get that feeling that something isn’t right, but yet I still find a way to make excuses and rationalizations to ignore warning signs.

5.) I take on the role of a “fixer”.

I’m so eager to prove that I’m a “good woman” that I will accept the person’s brokenness and excuses for not being able to fully be present and give me what I want, need and deserve out of a potential partner.

THERE IS NO HONOR OR REWARD FOR ACCEPTING SOMEONE’S BROKENNESS. YOU DESERVE SOMEONE WHO IS WHOLE THAT WILL GIVE YOU WHAT YOU WANT, NEED AND DESERVE. A RELATIONSHIP IS WORK BUT IT’S NOT A JOB. IT IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO “FIX” ANOTHER PERSON, IT IS THEIRS.

I put that in all caps just in case someone besides myself needed to read that.

6.) I romanticize red flags

This explains my reference to Romantic Comedies in this post. I will take something I should be paying attention to as a warning and turn it into an attribute.

So with these takeaways from my 6 week courtship, I will wait until my next post to talk about what actually happened for me to finally end things. Meanwhile I have made an appointment to start talking to a therapist. Mental health care is self care.