My brother and his girlfriend recently broke
up. He is 29 years old, but she is only 19. I believe that they should never
have been together anyway, because she is exactly like me, anxious, shy, quiet,
carries a different teddy with her everywhere, struggles at work, cannot cope
with loud noises or confrontation and cannot stand up for herself. My brother,
on the other hand, is incredibly mentally abusive.
Anyway, the main reason that
they broke up is something that I really relate to. My brother never wanted to
do things with his girlfriend, and/or things weren’t special/didn’t mean much
to him, because he had done them before, with someone else. I completely get
that. I dated someone on and off for four years. During that time frame, if you
counted the days that we saw each other, it added up to less than six months.
He didn’t want to see me every day, because he had done that before. He didn’t
want to have weekly dates, because he had done that before. He didn’t want to
celebrate any points or milestones in our relationship, because he had done
that before. On our one year anniversary, he told me that he thought that
spending the day together was pointless, but he only did it because he knew
that I wanted to – he also told me that he never wanted to marry me every
single time he picked me up in his car and drove us to his, then when we were
at his, he insisted that I was the one. We were never allowed to go on picnics,
on day trips, even more than one holiday for four nights was all we were
allowed, partly because he had already been on holiday with past girlfriends,
and also because four days was too long to be apart from his housemate for –
that always hurt me too. He never wanted to go longer than four days away from
his friend, but he could go eight weeks without seeing his girlfriend and it
didn’t bother him. Why? Because he had been in relationships where he got to be
with his girlfriend everyday and do things together and go places and celebrate
reaching milestones together before. None of it, with me, was special to him or
meant anything, because he had done it all before. I didn’t face as big of an
age gap as Scarlett and my brother, so I can only imagine how much harder it is
for her. I have cried for her, felt her pain. It really, really, really sucks
being the youngest in a relationship. First relationships, with age gaps are
really hard.
The more that I think about it,
the more anxious and upset I get. I really do want to get married one day, but
I guess, I can’t really. I’m going to be 34 in a few weeks’ time. By the time I
turned 24 years old, my entire school, college and university group of peers
were all married. Aside from my dopey brother, I do not know one person who is
over the age of 23 and is not married or has not been married. I can’t
re-download ‘Bumble’ and expect to find someone who I can have a happy
relationship with, who I can do things with and go places with and one day get
married to… because everyone has already done all of those things before.
Men have it easy. They don’t
need their marriage certificate for ID for the rest of their life. In fact,
after showing it to your employer to ensure that you are on the marriage tax
code, that’s all they need it for. Women have to pay hundreds of pounds, for an
entire new passport the day that they get married, but also every form that you
fill in, every job that you have, every everything, you need that marriage
certificate as proof of your name change, on top of your passport and licence.
How humiliating would it be to constantly be showing a piece of paper that says
you are married to a divorcee or a widower. You are constantly being reminded
all of the time that you aren’t your partner’s first choice, but their
consolation prize.
Scarlett is only 19 years old;
she still has time to find someone else. I have been trying to think really
positively about getting back into dating… but now I’m wondering if it is
pointless. I’m not saying any of this in a depressive or negative mindset, as I
know you can only understand 7% of a person’s intent in writing/text messages
(tone and body language make up the rest, which is why talking over the phone
and FaceTime are so much better forms of contact, as you have a larger
percentage of not misunderstanding someone’s intent). This piece is all about
curiosity, learning and trying to understand. So, if I do date someone… I am
going to have to come to terms with knowing that I am never going to mean more
to them than a consolation prize. I have also missed out on all of the things
that make a relationship fun, like dating, going on a picnic in the park, going
on day trips, going on holiday together, spending time together, cooking
together, doing hobbies together and getting married, because none of this will
ever mean anything to whoever I date, because they will have done it all
before, and either not want to do any of it with me or they will only be doing
it for my sake, as it won’t mean anything for them.
Does that mean that the only
way I can be happy is to be alone and never experience those things? I’m not
upset about it. I’m very content and happy in my own company. I think
disappointed is more the word that I am looking for. Maybe I should give up before I even try, to
save the heartache. Relationships only make you feel anxious, alone and not
good enough. You constantly have to worry if you do or say the wrong thing that
your entire future and happy thoughts will be over, but nothing will be any
different for the person that you date, apart from them not having a person in
their life who they occasionally kiss. How do people cope with that horrible,
panicky, dreadful feeling every single second of the day? Actually, why do I
even want to ever feel that ever again? Everyone else in the entire world must
be a lot stronger than me. The thought of feeling so insecure, not good enough
and constantly being scared of saying or doing the wrong thing that the other
person will just say, “Suit yourself,” and never speak to me ever again, for
what feels like absolutely no reason at all makes me realise that maybe I can’t
be in a relationship. The thought of stepping on eggshells for the rest of my
life and secretly crying all of the time, knowing that my girlfriend or
boyfriend could take my future, our happiness, our friendship away from me at
any moment, if I say something that gets taken the wrong way or text something
that gets 93% misinterpreted… I can’t feel that anxious for the rest of my
life. I feel sick and my chest is really tight, just thinking about it. Okay, I
really need to end this blog post, because I think I have started an anxiety
attack.
- Josie -
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