Lessons From Loving: My Recent Relationship and What it Taught Me About Life (Part 2)

This is a continuation of the love story I began in my previous blog. I highly recommend starting there, or this blog may seem pretty out of context! Click to start at the beginning.

After 3 weeks of seesawing between attempting to stay present and anxiously awaiting Alex's arrival I get a text that they are inbound to their Airbnb! They ask me if they can take me out to dinner, and of course I agree.

Our first interaction is awkward and thrilling at the same time. Alex picks me up in a big hug and my legs instinctively wrap around them. We bumble through conversation as Alex drives us to the restaurant. I’m nervous and giddy and failing as navigator, but somehow we get to the restaurant anyway.

Alex is clearly uncomfortable, and blames it on the drive and the anticipation of seeing each other for the first time. They’re excited about how friendly the locals are- it’s much more easy going than they thought it would be. I have this conversation pretty much anytime someone comes to visit. They always anticipate the stressful Los Angeles culture they see depicted on tv, not believing me when I tell them that Hermosa isn’t LA. It may be in LA County, but it has small town vibes… at least to most people who have spent time in cities.

The next month is delightful, 90% of the time. We spend most of our time together so Alex moves in. The plan is for them to be there for two months before heading back to wrap some stuff up at home… but we’re both hoping it will turn into a forever-sort-of-thing.

I'm excited and nervous as I have never lived with a romantic partner before.

We know that spending 24 hours a day together could be a recipe for disaster, so we discuss boundaries and implement strategies to give each of us the space we need.

Loving life with Alex’s arm around me <3

It works; living together is delightful. All of my fears about not being able to enjoy living with someone again are invalidated. We love being together, cooking meals together, and snuggling up whenever we want to. It’s pretty freaking amazing, getting to start every morning with a human you love.

I’m just thrilled. It’s a wonderful experience, having a second chance at being with someone I love. But this time it's even better because I've done my own healing. There isn't a fear of abandonment getting between us and causing me to push them away.

Alex has grown a lot too, and we’re communicating well. We talk openly and honestly about our needs and our fears. When someone feels hurt or worried about what the other person is thinking we address it instead of burying it. It feels much healthier than any relationship I’ve been in before. It feels like the kind of relationship I want to stay in for the rest of my life.

I mentioned that things were amazing 90% of the time. The other 10% of the time we feel a lot of uncertainty.

Especially Alex. We know that if we’re going to have a happy future together, both of our lifestyles will need to change. We don’t know how much though; Alex doesn’t have the same level of clarity about their needs and desires as I do about mine. Once or twice a week Alex’s opinion on that changes… and so does the probability that there’s a potential future we’ll both be able to enjoy.

As you might imagine, the back and forth is stressful AF. We oscillate between “This is it, we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together!” to “Nope, it doesn’t seem like this will work” and back to “We can do this and there’s nothing we want more”. The emotional rollercoaster we send ourselves on is both exhilarating and exhausting.

Among the chaos of this uncertainty, I glean insight from the Netflix documentary “Stutz”. In the documentary, psychiatrist Phil Stutz claims that uncertainty is always going to exist. That hits me. I realize that there’s no need for me to waste my time trying to figure everything out; no matter how much I analyze and plan the future will still be uncertain. Despite knowing we may decide there isn’t a life in which we can both be happy in the long term, I commit to enjoying the time we have together right now.

In addition, I lean into the PQ philosophy that every circumstance can be turned into a gift.

I choose to see the uncertainty and stress related to the situation as my “sage trainer”. I decide that every time I catch it throwing me off balance I’ll do PQ reps. This has triple benefits: it brings my mind back to the present (away from the stress), it builds my mental fitness/develops healthy habits, and it helps me feel good about the difficulty surrounding our situation.

Alex tells me how impressed they are by how calm and unwavering I am… especially compared to my 10-year-ago-self. They’re both amazed and jealous… as their sense of calm and excitement is often overtaken by anxiety and fear of making a decision they’ll regret.

As much as I love being together, eventually it becomes clear to me that Alex wants to maintain a truly remote life; much more remote than I will be able to enjoy.

For us to stay together, one or both of us would have to truly sacrifice. And I don't believe that's how it should be.

I do believe that healthy relationships come with some level of compromise and potentially small sacrifices. But I'm not going to enter into a relationship that requires either me or my partner to sacrifice our life satisfaction.

I am happy on my own, and would much rather be single than give up aspects of life that are important to me. And I want the same for my partner. Not that these are the only two options; there are plenty of people out there to love. I do believe we both can and deserve to find a partner who wants to live in a similar way.

I share this with Alex, and they can’t argue with my logic. Teary eyed, we agree that as much as we love being together we'll be better off separating to pursue our true ultimate fulfillment. And that we should end it a month earlier than planned, after giving ourselves one more week.

And thus begins the next challenging phase of our relationship: staying together for a week and trying to enjoy each other's company, knowing we're about to say goodbye. Stay tuned for how we handle that in the next blog!