5 Years ago today I started dating Sam, instead of writing about how badly I miss her and how much pain I feel, I thought I would give my point of view on our entire relationship, with all the new skills I have learned and what’ve learned about my emotions it should be interesting.
The truth is Sam scared the hell out of me pretty much from the start, she was so different than anyone I had ever met. I felt connected to her so damn quickly, but it didn’t take long for things to get difficult between us. Sam made a lot of mistakes the first 2 years of our relationship. I consciously made the decision to stay with her while she worked on the things she needed to and I was happy that I did, Sam really did make amazing adjustments in a lot of areas of her life. I focused so much on being there for her that I didn’t realize that resentment had built up inside me. I never told Sam that I felt that way mostly, because I didn’t know I felt that way.
Our 3rd year together was the best year we had for me anyway, our fights were less often and Sam wasn’t running away nearly as much. This is the time I wish I had of talked to her about the resentment that had built up within me, but I didn’t have the emotional vocabulary to do it in a healthy way. Since I had seen so much change in Sam I made the decision to start leaning on her with my needs, not that I never had before but I was focused mostly on her until this point. I thought I was doing the right thing because were getting engaged and talking about starting a family. I naively just kept hammering her with requests and critique that she needed to do better in a lot of superficial areas. I truly thought that was the best thing to do for both her and me, but I never saw that by doing that I was making it harder for her take the time to learn new skills, but it was so difficult for me to see her fail and beat herself up.
Near the end of the 3rd year is when everything went wrong for me, I was overwhelmed, I was insecure, I was resentful and we were in a global pandemic. At the time I had no idea I felt any of this, all I knew was that I was unhappy and I needed a change. Of course I was very vocal with her about that point, in retrospect my requests to her for safety and security made no sense, because I didn’t know what I needed. So now the tables are turned and I am the one that blows up and is running away like Sam did the first 2 years. I was so confused because I was sure that I was head of heals for her and never wanted to lose her, but I treated her poorly much more often that I care to admit. I had hoped that I could work everything out in my head alone, but that just wasn’t never realistic.
That’s how I see our relationship right now, the two biggest issues were that neither of us knew how to handle the emotions we felt. It was the first time either of us had been in love, what made it worse was that neither of us knew how to communicate effectively.
I feel so sad today and my heart is broken, but we had a complicated but loving relation and that’s what I want to hold on to today.