The things I learned about relationships. After my breakup!

When I was in my early 20s (ok, that was just 5 years ago) I thought I knew it all, but I didn’t. I had this perfect idea and plan about my life and what my love relationship would look like, because according to my 20 year old self, I would only have that one great relationship, my happily ever after.

But the truth was, I knew nothing about relationships. I never had a relationship in my teens like other kids, and everything I knew was things I picked up from my friends, my family, books, movies, and church.

So when I was 21 and in my first relationship things didn’t go at all like planned and as quick as things began, as quickly they also ended.

Relationships shouldn’t be rushed into and take long and hard work!

My first relationship started very quickly with a boy I had met online and thought was perfect from inside out. We talked a lot for a whole of 6 months, which seemed like eternity back then and we had so many things in common. When we first met it was like we had known forever and there was no room for questions anymore; it was clear to both of us that we belonged together so we got together. I met his parents just a few days after that and his group of friends as well and while everybody was asking a lot of questions we were blindly in love. We on vacation with his group of friends, spent the whole summer together, seeing each other every day before I had to leave the country again to go back to university. We skipped a lot of milestones in our relationship and in the end it turned out that taking things slow and getting to know a person slowly is sort of important.

Long distance is not for everyone and especially hard on a new couple!

As soon as that summer ended and I had to leave, the difficult part had just begun. The honeymoon phase was over but so were our daily times together and not having the other one around made things complicated. We were still in love and maybe happy, but we had to make great efforts to see each other once a month over the weekend. Most of the time we were torn between doing the best we can with the small amount of time we could spend together and socializing with other people like his friends and family. These weekends flew by very fast and we hardly got any time to ourselves, talking about us, our relationship, our future. Those weekends were very busy and sometimes fun, but they didn’t help us grow as a couple.

Having common friends is crucial!

Along with my new boyfriend came a bunch of new friends. His friends! I’ve never been a person who had a lot of friends and since he came from a different city none of our social activities included our friends. Being in a new relationship was hard enough, even though I thought I already knew this boy my whole life, but being placed into this new group of friends was overwhelming. We had a lot in common and they were all very nice but being the new kid made me feel like an outsider very often. A lot of our social activities as a couple like small vacations, hiking, parties, movies, birthdays, they all had something to do with his friends, even on those rare weekends we spent together. Often times I wish I could have my own friends over as well, and more than once I felt so alone in a group of people that had known each other for a long time and had shared a lot of fun moments together as well.
But this was not even the top of the ice berg. One day he asked if he had to choose between me and his friends. As soon as the relationship was over I also stopped seeing his friends as well.

Meeting the parents!

Having spent a whole summer with my boyfriend, and then one weekend every month + Christmas and every break I could get from school, also meant spending a lot of time with his family. I met his parents just a couple of days after I met him for the first time in person, and it was a huge adjustment. While these people were very welcoming and accepted me like their own daughter, they soon felt entitled to talk to me about my life, my aspirations and my future career. His grandmother said we couldn’t get married unless I would also get a master’s degree after finishing my bachelor’s degree, even though we had only been together for a few months. His mother joined this awkward statement by asking me what plans I had after finishing university and with 21 and having just started university after moving to another country my plans were rather modest. I told her I planned on teaching German as a foreign language (since I was studying German Philology in Austria) or that I could work as a translator, if I moved back to Romania. Needless to say, my parents always encouraged me to follow my dreams and my path, but his mother told me to look for a greater goal, something that would pay more money, a job at a big corporate firm maybe, if I wanted to be with her son. For the first time in my life I felt like I was not enough and having someone dictate my future was a punch in the gut at the age of 21.

Always listen to that voice in your head!

At the time being these situations and a lot of other moments rose a lot of questions and made me feel very anxious about everything that had to do with our relationships. 6 months later things looked like they were falling apart but we promised to give us a second chance after he was the first open to point out that he was not happy with how things were. In retrospect I often thought that this had been the moment to break up with him, but I missed the moment. I didn’t have the experience I needed to notice it, nor the courage or the will to end a relationship I really wanted to save so I didn’t. About 6 months after that point, I thought that we actually made it through when one day after talking about summer plans together, he broke up with me. 
Today I know that noticing the signs and listening to that voice in my head that won’t stop nagging me, is something I shouldn’t take lightly. Sometimes that voice is just anxiety, sometimes it is overthinking, but most of times it is trying to tell you just one thing: No one deserves to be in an unhappy relationship!

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