What did I learn about my last relationship?

                                                                Another lesson

Hi Guys! Welcome back to another blog, as always everything that I write about is 100% authentic and comes from an honest opinion. So as a disclaimer, if you do not like what I am writing about please do not read ahead.     

Do you ever just fall into a relationship? I believe, we all once in our life will fall into the trap of comfortability not because it serves us any purpose, but because becoming comfortable is easy and it is easy to facilitate and becomes a habit.

I have recently come out of a relationship, that was comfortable, it was not fantastic but it was not bad either it was comfortable. 

Last year (2021) I had gone back to the U.K on a trip in the summer and matched somebody off tinder (out of all places!)  the problem was he was back in the U.K something I swore from the previous relationship I would never do again.  At the time I was talking to a few contenders, and he was actually at the bottom of the list, because I didn't think he was very serious however slowly I saw that he was the most genuine in getting to know me, and I soon met him in November. 

Were there instant fireworks? No, but he had set the hotel with petals, flowers, and candles which was really cute, and coming from the type of guy he was this was unexpected and not something he would do he would even say. It showed that he did have a romantic side so I invested more interest into seeing what could happen. 

He met my family over Christmas. Although the plan was not for him to meet them so soon, we realized the only time we would have to spend together was on Christmas day so he traveled down to Brighton and met my family. He fit in so easily, so everyone initially really liked him and we just became a couple from there. There was no should we be boyfriend and girlfriend we just started to refer to each other as this. 

Eventually, I went back to Spain and the questions started creeping in. How would he move his business? How would we make this work? How much would we see each other? We had very serious conversations and tried to be as realistic as we possibly could. He is a man of his word, so he did give 100% into making this work, by coming out as often as he could. 

To begin with, for around 6 months everything was fine, I was convinced we would be ok. We were strong, talked often, communicated well, and were realistic about our relationship ensuring our lives in our countries were our top priorities. He always understood my work was important to me, and always encouraged me to achieve my goals. This was his quality that I loved. 

But without realizing it we became comfortable. We hardly ever spoke on the phone (even though I argued this point at times) and our conversations became very mundane I was bored and I felt that I had a pen pal relationship when he was not there.  What was I doing? 

I am someone that reacts very much depending on the vibe and energy I have around me. If you are fun. I'm fun, if you are introverted, I'm extroverted. If your energy is low, so is mine. I felt that our energies were very different. I'm a conversationalist, I love talking and communicating whereas he is more of a listener. I am quite fiery so when I am angry, I blow after a buildup. He is someone that would rather talk straight away. So our characters were very different, which in the beginning was fine but over time the gap started becoming a bigger bridge. 

We communicated, we had a make or break conversation in April which went well, and for a while, things were probably at their best. But two stubborn characters do not mix well, every time we would argue there would be no understanding of the other perspective but we kept trying because we generally wanted to give this a try. After my last long distance where I gave up at the first hurdle, I wanted to make sure I gave this my all and called it quits when it was ready too. 

I also met his family in April, and although I won't go into much detail there were situations where I felt he should have been on my side and supported me when I had only gone in there to be friendly. This really hurt me, because I had gone there with only good intentions. I am not the first to have gone through this, so someone who claims to love you I think would have been more conscious of their feelings,  I felt he gave me this otherworldly impression, which when I arrived was not what it was made out to be. I am not saying any family is perfect, mine is far from it. However, it made me realize some stuff that probably didn't help the situation. It made me realize that family orientation is a very massive trait that I look for and I want in my next relationship.

Over time, I think for us both our gaps began to get bigger and bigger. He is someone that likes words of affirmation - I like actions and quality time. What I felt he deserved to feel loved by somebody, was not something I could give him and vice versa I don't think he could give me mine, and we broke it off before it became toxic. 

We broke up not long ago, and we both gave it our best shot, however, we were not right for each other and I wish him nothing but the best. We had good times and also bad frustrating times, but it is another lesson learned I feel I have come out of a relationship a stronger person - I know traits such as sexual attraction are more important than I thought, a family-orientated person is needed, someone who is not materialistic is necessary and what I think I deserve is the most important thing for self-belief and worth. 

He has some great qualities, and I am sure there is a girl out there that will appreciate them and he gets the happiness he deserves, but unfortunately, it is not me. 

Erin x