Movies from the past and pressure cookers

I woke up this morning on the wrong side of the bed. I can't really put my finger on what is exactly going on so I thought I would take a moment and write.

Yesterday I was off and spent the day doing what I wanted. A little raking and little cleaning and then I watched an old movie that I found in a box of kitchen supplies stored upstairs. I was looking for the top of my pressure cooker.  You know that thing that shakes when the pressure is high. I didn't find it but there was the the movie.

The movie I purchase with my ex and we regularly watched it together. It made me cry to think how new love was then for us and how we believed we would always be together. We wanted so badly to think we could keep the fires going.  How our relationship would be special and beat the odds.

Do I believe that people can stay together forever? Yes I do but only if both people are mature enough to know a relationship is about two people that need room to grow and change. Is anyone the same after 10 or 20 years or even five years. It isn't the relationship that makes us whole we have to do this ourselves. The relationship does benefit from us making ourselves whole.

Both of my long term relationships ended. I use to say failed but that isn't true. They just ran their course. Ironically yesterday day was the anniversary of my first marriage too. Maybe it was just a pile up day for me. Maybe I have an emotional hang over today.

My friend is visiting and she is leaving the glowing phase of her own relationship. She is here without her husband and feeling free and happy to be on her own. He is feeling lonely and a little abandoned. He has been the total focus of her life for the past two years.

Her words this morning hurt me more than they should have. They sounded cold and unsympathetic to what he was feeling.

My ex's replaced me before they left. They were unsympathetic to my feelings too.  I accept now that this is how some people find the courage to end an already dying relationship. I am too loyal for that and I stay long after it is healthy for me. I prefer to be the victim and felt both times like I had been discarded after giving my all.

I have learned a lot about myself and my expectations. I have learned that giving my all is too much if I am expecting that in return.  I have to respect myself and my needs first and then tend to the relationship.

We merge in the beginning of every relationship and over time we become our individual selves again and this is when we have to redefine the relationship. This is when decisions have to be made.

I hope I didn't bum anyone out today. Writing has made me see that I was empathizing with my friend's husband and feeling a wave of pain from my past. I am grieving the death of a dream the dream that someone else out there can complete me. Only I can do that.