cosette

You know I never thought about what I wanted out of a relationship. I knew what college I wanted to go to, what I wanted to major in, what graduate school I want to go in to and what field of psychology I want to go into. My career. That's all I thought about. Everytime I saw the future I saw my career and nothing else.

Last week the boyfriend asked me what I wanted out of a relationship. I couldn't answer him because I didn't know. Now I can't get it off my mind.

I went to the school psychologist today to talk to her about it. I told her I shouldn't even be letting it bother me. I should't let the disagreements him and I have upset me because I'm 19 and in college. It shouldn't be a big deal when/if we break up because I'm still young and have a while to find someone. She told me I shouldn't think of it like that. If I have something good then why go out and search for something else unless I feel like I'm missing out? Just because people my age are usually dating someone new every three weeks, doesn't mean I have to get rid of a good thing just so I am doing the same thing and I feel like that's what I'm supposed to be doing. That's not to say I am looking to stay with this guy forever and planning the wedding or anything. That's just to say I am staying with him for now until I feel like it's not working anymore or I need to go out and experience more or something.

Then I brought up why I never forgive my boyfriends. No matter how little the mistake is I can never forgive them. I never understood why. So we dug a little bit into my past and found something rather interesting...

I never wrote about this, but when I was 15 I was dating this guy that I had known for about two years. It had been about a week since we started dating and I was staying over at his house one night. I don't want to go into details, but he tried to have sex with me and I said no because I wasn't ready yet (I had already lost my virginity, but I hadn't had sex with him at that point in time) and he did it anyway and raped me. I went through therapy and thought "Well, I feel great about it. The nightmares have gone away and I'm off my anti-depressants. I don't feel like a victim anymore. I guess I'm cured!" WRONG!!! After that night I stopped wearing skirts (because I was wearing one when it happend) and slowly I started wearing skirts again. Long skirts, but skirts none-the-less. i started getting back into things that I stopped doing because I had done them earlier the day it happend or something like that and it didn't remind me of it anymore. I never thought about how it would effect my relationship with future boyfriends. So she thinks because this happend I am so quick to assume the worst in the guy that I'm dating. I have to say it never even crossed my mind, but now that she pointed it out it makes so much sense. The boyfriend doesn't know about this incident. I never really thought there was a time that he needed to know. Maybe sometime down the road when he's wanting to understand me more I will, but I don't think I'm ready to right now and I'm not going to rush it.

She also says I should really think about what he asked me. What do I want out of a relationship? She told me to write it out so I can get my thoughts straight and just tell him a little bit at a time and it will be uncomfortable because I'm not an open person. Baby steps. So tell him a little bit at a time see what happens then depending on his reaction, tell him a little more. He can't do things to make me happy if I don't tell him what makes me happy.

I got so worried that I was going to become one of those girls that lets her boyfriend treat her like shit. I mean I know I have been guilty of it in the past. What girl hasn't been? But I didn't want it to happend again. I don't want to rationalize either. We really don't have arguements and whenever I needed to talk to him he's been there. One incident made me feel like I cant go to him anymore and it wasn't even a big deal. That's not fair to him. One time out of hundreds of times he's let me vent and listened to what I have to say and actually acknowledge the fact that some of the things he does bothers me and avoids doing those things, just one. So her suggestion was let him know what I want out of the relationship and see if things actually change, stay the same, or get worse.

So the real problem??

COMMUNICATION!!!!

God this relationship stuff is hard.