spinaroonie
Senior Don Juan
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2009
- Messages
- 318
- Reaction score
- 27
This was written by an acquaintance on Facebook. The dude mentioned is a friend of mine. I thought it was an interesting read. Curious on your perspectives.
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[please note: this note is my reflection on how i discovered that the relationship imagined to be ideal and perfect by many women is not as perfect as it looks on paper - it is not at all meant as a jab at my ex, who i happen to think is a fantastic man that i ended on good terms with and still care about. obviously, i felt completely comfortable sharing everything written below...i don't have many secrets of my own. i talk about the way my ex behaved in an analytical rather than critical manner (at least that's how i intended it to be) and want to mention i believe breakups are never the fault of one person and sometimes no one's fault at all...they simply weren't right together.)
So contrary to popular belief, I am not quite as "girly" as I look. Even though I was dating a very masculine, Scottish-Canadian man, I, the little Asian girl who came up to his chin, somehow ended up being the guy in the relationship. And I didn't want to be the man in the relationship. I am in no way the stereotypical submissive Asian woman but I really did want to be with someone who took more leadership in the relationship; who would regard me as his equal and be the one to lead at least once in a while. It's very strange - many girls would kill to be in a relationship with a man who adored her and thought she was perfect. Colin honestly thought I was an angel and practically worshiped me. If we went on a date, he would never come up with anything to do but always ask me what I wanted to do. And so we would always end up doing what I wanted to do. See, most girls would think I had it made and that I'm an ungrateful wretch for not enjoying this. But the truth is, I would have been much happier (and I'm sure Colin would have been too) if he had at least occasionally come up with a date that involved doing something he really liked to do, even if it was something I didn't think I would love doing. I obviously had trouble knowing what I wanted to do for each date (we were together for 4 years!), and doing something different would have been exciting and refreshing. If we had gone on a date Colin had planned without having to ask me anything, I would have appreciated the fact that he had taken the effort to plan a date without having me spell it out for him, I may have discovered a new activity that I would grow to love, and I would simply get to enjoy doing something with my boyfriend that he loved doing. It was the exact same thing with gifts. Half the joy in receiving a present is finding that the person who gave it to you knows you well enough to pick out something you might like. Many, many times, Colin would ask me exactly what I wanted because he felt this would please me best. But when I told him what to get me, it didn't feel like a present at all anymore and I just felt like I was demanding...I would much rather have bought that thing for myself and even received a gift I didn't like as much if he had thought of it by himself (the thought really does count).
One of the main pet peeves guys have with respect to their girlfriends, is the fact that girls will get upset about something, either bottle it up inside or sulk, and then later seemingly without warning 'explode' at you. I was totally the man in the relationship! Almost the entire 4 years, Colin bottled up everything and said everything was fine, even when I directly asked him if anything was bothering him. I told him I needed him to tell me what was wrong so I could do something to fix it. He either always told me nothing was wrong or tell me something extremely vague then change the topic if I asked him to explain it better so I could better understand. Then every once in a while, from out of the blue, I got hit in the face with the different ways he expressed his bottled up frustration when he couldn't hold it in anymore: finding the awful things he wrote about me, hearing what he said behind my back, discovering the vindictive little things he had done to "get me back" for inadvertently hurting him, learning he had lied to my face everyday for 6 months. They say communication is key and it really is. After the first time he vented his pent-up anger by what girls call "emotional cheating" and lying to me the whole time, we talked and I thought he had learned not to bottle things up and understood how important it was for him to tell me what he was actually thinking or feeling. But he didn't get it because he kept bottling things up and venting in ways that cut me again and again and again until I was completely sapped and so injured I could barely function anymore. It is what eventually broke us and it was such a poisonous relationship for me that I can honestly say I don't miss it at all.
I "wore the pants" in the relationship and I really didn't want to. I literally led Colin around by the hand because when he was with me he let himself become so weak in terms of being a person with his own opinions and passions that he was almost character-less. Not many people knew that a few years before our relationship ended for good, I had actually broken up with Colin for a few months after I found out he had been lying to me. In that time I actually met someone. He admired me for who I was without losing himself and fawning over me like Colin did. I know this sounds strange, but after having had to lead Colin around for years, I found it incredibly sexy when this other guy physically took my hand at one point to lead me through the crowd at a parade we went to. To be with someone "on my level" in a teammate-teammate type relationship, rather than someone who left me feeling alone and elevated into isolation in a coach-teammate type relationship, was not the least bit threatening but rather extremely exhilarating. It is satisfying to be with someone who sees that you have faults and loves you just as you are rather than being with someone who sees you as absolute perfection, adores you, sets you up high on a pedestal, only to finally realize you are human and let you come toppling off your pedestal to smash into a thousand pieces. A person who loves you while recognizing your shortcomings can challenge you to become better and encourage you in your growth. A person who worships you allows you to become complacent and can even stunt your individual growth. It was unhealthy for me to be in a relationship that was so out of balance but I stayed in it for so long because I obviously came to deeply care and love Colin, and also as the result of other personal issues. I can't be happy in a relationship where I don't respect and admire the person I'm with as much as he respects and admires me. Other ways in which I was the man in my relationship: I was the much much less romantic one (I hate anything that feels insincere and cliche), I didn't say I love you first or bring up marriage first, and I was the career-driven one who didn't want kids (though looking back that may just be because I was with the wrong person). It's funny that when people mean to say that a woman is strong and too much the man in the relationship, they sometimes use the expression, "she was too much WOMAN for him to handle" (which I've gotten before and didn't take as an insult or a compliment lol).
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Thoughts?
*****************************************************
[please note: this note is my reflection on how i discovered that the relationship imagined to be ideal and perfect by many women is not as perfect as it looks on paper - it is not at all meant as a jab at my ex, who i happen to think is a fantastic man that i ended on good terms with and still care about. obviously, i felt completely comfortable sharing everything written below...i don't have many secrets of my own. i talk about the way my ex behaved in an analytical rather than critical manner (at least that's how i intended it to be) and want to mention i believe breakups are never the fault of one person and sometimes no one's fault at all...they simply weren't right together.)
So contrary to popular belief, I am not quite as "girly" as I look. Even though I was dating a very masculine, Scottish-Canadian man, I, the little Asian girl who came up to his chin, somehow ended up being the guy in the relationship. And I didn't want to be the man in the relationship. I am in no way the stereotypical submissive Asian woman but I really did want to be with someone who took more leadership in the relationship; who would regard me as his equal and be the one to lead at least once in a while. It's very strange - many girls would kill to be in a relationship with a man who adored her and thought she was perfect. Colin honestly thought I was an angel and practically worshiped me. If we went on a date, he would never come up with anything to do but always ask me what I wanted to do. And so we would always end up doing what I wanted to do. See, most girls would think I had it made and that I'm an ungrateful wretch for not enjoying this. But the truth is, I would have been much happier (and I'm sure Colin would have been too) if he had at least occasionally come up with a date that involved doing something he really liked to do, even if it was something I didn't think I would love doing. I obviously had trouble knowing what I wanted to do for each date (we were together for 4 years!), and doing something different would have been exciting and refreshing. If we had gone on a date Colin had planned without having to ask me anything, I would have appreciated the fact that he had taken the effort to plan a date without having me spell it out for him, I may have discovered a new activity that I would grow to love, and I would simply get to enjoy doing something with my boyfriend that he loved doing. It was the exact same thing with gifts. Half the joy in receiving a present is finding that the person who gave it to you knows you well enough to pick out something you might like. Many, many times, Colin would ask me exactly what I wanted because he felt this would please me best. But when I told him what to get me, it didn't feel like a present at all anymore and I just felt like I was demanding...I would much rather have bought that thing for myself and even received a gift I didn't like as much if he had thought of it by himself (the thought really does count).
One of the main pet peeves guys have with respect to their girlfriends, is the fact that girls will get upset about something, either bottle it up inside or sulk, and then later seemingly without warning 'explode' at you. I was totally the man in the relationship! Almost the entire 4 years, Colin bottled up everything and said everything was fine, even when I directly asked him if anything was bothering him. I told him I needed him to tell me what was wrong so I could do something to fix it. He either always told me nothing was wrong or tell me something extremely vague then change the topic if I asked him to explain it better so I could better understand. Then every once in a while, from out of the blue, I got hit in the face with the different ways he expressed his bottled up frustration when he couldn't hold it in anymore: finding the awful things he wrote about me, hearing what he said behind my back, discovering the vindictive little things he had done to "get me back" for inadvertently hurting him, learning he had lied to my face everyday for 6 months. They say communication is key and it really is. After the first time he vented his pent-up anger by what girls call "emotional cheating" and lying to me the whole time, we talked and I thought he had learned not to bottle things up and understood how important it was for him to tell me what he was actually thinking or feeling. But he didn't get it because he kept bottling things up and venting in ways that cut me again and again and again until I was completely sapped and so injured I could barely function anymore. It is what eventually broke us and it was such a poisonous relationship for me that I can honestly say I don't miss it at all.
I "wore the pants" in the relationship and I really didn't want to. I literally led Colin around by the hand because when he was with me he let himself become so weak in terms of being a person with his own opinions and passions that he was almost character-less. Not many people knew that a few years before our relationship ended for good, I had actually broken up with Colin for a few months after I found out he had been lying to me. In that time I actually met someone. He admired me for who I was without losing himself and fawning over me like Colin did. I know this sounds strange, but after having had to lead Colin around for years, I found it incredibly sexy when this other guy physically took my hand at one point to lead me through the crowd at a parade we went to. To be with someone "on my level" in a teammate-teammate type relationship, rather than someone who left me feeling alone and elevated into isolation in a coach-teammate type relationship, was not the least bit threatening but rather extremely exhilarating. It is satisfying to be with someone who sees that you have faults and loves you just as you are rather than being with someone who sees you as absolute perfection, adores you, sets you up high on a pedestal, only to finally realize you are human and let you come toppling off your pedestal to smash into a thousand pieces. A person who loves you while recognizing your shortcomings can challenge you to become better and encourage you in your growth. A person who worships you allows you to become complacent and can even stunt your individual growth. It was unhealthy for me to be in a relationship that was so out of balance but I stayed in it for so long because I obviously came to deeply care and love Colin, and also as the result of other personal issues. I can't be happy in a relationship where I don't respect and admire the person I'm with as much as he respects and admires me. Other ways in which I was the man in my relationship: I was the much much less romantic one (I hate anything that feels insincere and cliche), I didn't say I love you first or bring up marriage first, and I was the career-driven one who didn't want kids (though looking back that may just be because I was with the wrong person). It's funny that when people mean to say that a woman is strong and too much the man in the relationship, they sometimes use the expression, "she was too much WOMAN for him to handle" (which I've gotten before and didn't take as an insult or a compliment lol).
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Thoughts?
