relationship, why does it have to be so hard?

Is there a couple anywhere who love each other equally?
I doubt it.
I feel I love and give more in my relationship, and my best friend , feels she gives the most, yet her guy seems to do 10 times more sweet things than my guy can manage.

I always thought it was one of those things where on any given day one gave more than the other, but in a good relation it came out even after a certain length of time. Like you care for him while he has a bad head cold. Then he goes to a special place with you later, without the usual complaining. Or, you cook a special meal and he is loving and attentive and appreciates your efforts. Or is that all just "Betty Crocker Homemaker" garbage we have been feed.

I guess I sound bitter tonight. Well it is probably because I am feeling bitter. I give 95 percent and if I dare say I have something special I need, like an extra hug. Why does it have to be a big sigh and do I really need to do this.

Why is it so hard for me to realize I am just asking the wrong guy. you know the old saying knocking on the same door asking the same question and expecting a different answer. I am still doing that. something in the female head , says oh I can fix this, I will just try harder, or be sweeter or nicer and he will want to do things for me. Don't work that way he can accept nice favors forever and never feel the need to reciprocate
Sorta like the more you do the more he expects. I guess I have myself to blame as I trained him this way from the beginning, I was always willing to do more than my share. Thinking it would catch up in time.
After 6 months I am tired of waiting for it to catch up. I am always on the short end.
Why do I stay?
Good question.
Best I can say is the fear of living the rest of my life alone. Don't get me wrong there are some good points in the relationship. The sex is is good, we have a lot of things in common. We can spends several hours just hanging out together. I just get tired of being the one to initiate most of the hugs and kisses. when I have to ask they lose their value.
Some how I am just supposed to know he loves me, after all he spends time with me. Well excuse me that doesn't add up to love in my book. That is only a good friend or a comfortable old shoe, you hate to discard, might still get some use from it.

Is it so wrong to want to be special to someone.
To feel that you are a treasure.
That you feelings are important and valued.
oh, the things one can thing, when they are feeling up loved

Holidays begins the sense of dread

I was staying as busy as possible. Hoping the holidays would just slip right by this year. A little less painful than last year. No, such luck.. the uneasyness has returned. My husband lost his fight for his life on december 14 , 2004. Leaving me alone to face the future. I should have been able to handle life, after all I had survived the worst year of my life . Watching my precious hubby just die a little each day. After that you would think living would be do--able. Even if not happy, just do-able.
I seemed ok til that morning in the grocery store, when the smell of thanksgiving filled the air and everywhere were the things people love to prepare for those family feast. Touble is I now have no family.
I was left with the need to run away as fast and as far as I can run.
I have a few friends, but they can't understand the emptiness in my heart. The hole seems so large and ragged, there my never be enough to fill that hole. No one will ever love and care for me the way my hubby did. No he wasn't perfect, but he was loyal and wanted nothing more than to spend time with me. He had the ability to distract me, when life wasn't so kind, when live was boring, or care for me when I was not feeling my best. Now I am on my own. if bored it is up to me to find something to do. if, ill I have to recover all alone.
I spend a lot of time wishing it was Janurary 3rd. Knowing that is just wishing my life away.
I see couples shopping, dancing or just laughing together, and have to turn away. The emptiness returns and magnifies. The answer eludes me. Part of me knows this will pass, part of me wants to hope. the rest of me wonders if it will ever end. Will I ever laugh and be happy again. I have heard it said you are as happy as you feel . It is all up to you. Wow wish it was that easy, just blink and the sadness would evaporate and happiness would follow.

Another day in paradise

The day started off cool and crisp.I dusted off my old office skills and helped someone fill out a couple of forms. Then off to the shrink. Keeping my head above water is a full time job these days.
I gained some insights, now as to whether I can apply those insights, that is an entirely different question. Isn't it strange that when we have real light bulb moment, it turns out to be something we have already heard at least a dozen times.
My light bulb moment was realizing that I have paid my dues in suffering guilt and it's OK to let it go, now.
My children are fully grown and the behaviors they have today are fully their own. At one time they were just stamped copies of me, they lived by my rules for the most part. They are now responsible for their own behavior. When they are hitting me with the, I can't help the way I have turned out, as I had such a painful childhood. Mom, you know you really owe me big time.

Truth is they are still using this guilt of suffering childhood because it works . If it didn't work they would have already dropped it for new behavior. By now they know all they have to do is remind me of how awful their childhood was. How they never got the chances other kids got, they never got the designer clothes, the right accessories. And so now somehow I owe them. Only trouble with that plan is that it is never ending. It can start and stop and start again at a minutes notice. Just when I think I have paid my debt off, they revive a new detail, and the game starts anew.

Then as evening settles and temperatures drop, I am off to a grief support meeting. Trying to find my way back out of a deep cave of depression and loneliness that settled over me after the death of my husband.
You should be over "all that," I am told by well meaning people. All I can think is, they must have never been through this, or they lost someone they cared little about. This grieve is all encompassing. There are constant reminders, that I am only half a whole party. It is in the grocery store, where all his favorites reside. It is in the leftovers, that don't get eaten. It is in the car that gets neglected. But mostly it is in the cold quiet emptiness of darkness.
At a certain time in the late afternoon, your heart knows if he were around he would be on his way or already home. The routines were too strong. They completed the day. Now they just serve as reminders that things will never be the same. I will never again, have the joy of looking up and seeing him burst through the door, loaded with packages or covered with grime. He was always a welcome sight. His big warm grin filled the room. His voice came deep and loud out of a tall slim frame. His hands were twice my size. They were those hands that can hold a basketball and made it look small. Oh how I miss those hands.
A lot of a man's character can be seen in his hands. Hands are shaped and weathered by work, doing chores in bad weather, fixing a faucet, and skinning a knuckle.

Everything I do, I do to too push away the emptiness.Things not done for joying of doing, just done to eat up those long hours, leaving me too tired to feel as I crawl into bed.

Drinking from a dipper

What a long trip I have taken. As a young girl I drank from a shared dipper into a bucket of fresh spring water. The thought of germs never entered our vocabulary. Choices there were none.
Looking out from my view point today, I can surf the web, blog my life story, watch men and women go to the moon and beyond. In technical terms everything has changed, in human action very little has changed.
When meeting my potential new in-law's, I am still expected to forget everything I know I and do everything the way they were taught. Could it be that they never drank from a dipper.
As a young girl I could mold myself around most anyone wishes. I now find myself with a few ideas of my own. Independent thinking was encouraged in my home. Why does independent thinking seem so scary to so many. Many negative names have been applied to try to shame us out of our ideas..Let's see, bitch comes to mind, then stubborn, or maybe just the whisper of 'strange'.
Heaven help if we can see two ways to do something. But wait, who do they call when they are reached the end of their wits. ...Try thinking outside the box at least once a day...
Life has made many twist and turns since those barefoot dipper days. I have delivered 4 children, two to keep, two to be returned to sender. Let their Father go on down the creek after 30 years, of belittling.
Married another precious man and knew the sweetest love and care I had ever know. We were going to be that forever couple, cancer had other ideas. It only took 9 months to bring a man of 6 foot stature to his knees. A thousand whys and say it isn't so; and he is still gone. Leaving me with a huge gaping hole in my heart. He wouldn't have wanted me to hurt like this. He never wanted me to be sad. He would always wrap me up in his long arms and make everything OK again.
Now it is up to me to find happiness.
I must say it is a lot more evasive than I ever dreamed.Haven't found it in things, or places. Haven't found it in new makeup , new clothes, loosing 60 pounds, new car, paying off the house. I saw it in a few glimpses from new friends faces. Wow there it is , but no now it is gone. Must be a inside job. Thought I felt it for just a minute the other night while dancing with gal pals. whoops, gone again

In the clairity of daylight

Daylight saving has arrived. And with it a strange sense of calm. I am back in the rose colored glasses stage. Nothing can follow but pain.
Why do I continue to ride this roller coaster? I love the highs, I must get something from the lows, as they keep coming with regularity. Why do I keep trying to find someone to love this inner child? Why can't I just accept the fact that my parents weren't the lovey, cuddly type,.. but they loved me...( they raised me didn't they?)They never let me starve or die from neglect...they just forgot the mention a couple of items, like love, comfort, touching, or and I almost forgot hugs and kisses.
Fast forward a lifetime, and here I am a fully grown woman, expecting to find this is male\female relationship.
To a therapists, I am sure it is a classic pattern. Knowing that doesn't relieve my pain, or my need to find those hugs and kisses.
It was in full effect when I was a teenager having my first experience with going all the way. Just guess what my first remark was, after the deed was done. (The quick, is this all there is,instant sorrow, no foreplay act) You, are going to marry me aren't you? In that moment I lost my power. Up til then he was doing everything to please me. Now the prize was won, Things got swapped and I was doing all the pleasing. Like please marry me, please,.. I will be a good girl, I will anticipate your every need. Your wish is my command.. ..I gave it my best.... in fact I gave it 29 and one half more years. (will open that door another day)
For the rest of my life I will be left to wonder, if things would have been different , if.. just only if.. my parents had told me I had any value, that I was precious, that I had worth.....It is answer I will never know , but the question haunts me and my sister. As we each try to value ourselves. How can value ever be put in place when it wasn't there in the beginning.
Oh sure you can buy pretty things, try getting a hug from those. You can live in very nice house, in a great neighborhood, drive a Lincoln and still look for approval on every one's face.
They say you can learn to give it to yourself, I say it isn't possible, you aren't looking for your own approval, you are seeking the approval of the rest of the world. And in this seeking, lies all too many chances of getting disapproval instead.
So the fact remains , it sorta snowballs. every disapproval covers over the last 10 approvals. So what is there left to do, but try harder. Even that isn't the answer, at some point you realize the hugs and approval you have to ask or beg for, really sucks.
Hey universe, Is there really one male out there who can give hugs and support , before you even need it, and enough to last til the next time you need it? I might have walked right by him, looking for more rejection.
I thought I saw: a neat, clean cut guy, clean clothes, shaved, bright eyes, and proud confident stance, easy smile... what did I miss? What did my inner needy child see that I didn't see? It is hard to believe that part of me said , hey, boy check him out , looks like a great chance to get ignored and dismissed again.. and I don't know about you , but I need some more rejection right now..."Let's get to know him better."
Seems like male\female ritual.. She likes him more than he likes her, He likes her more than she likes him.. Does it ever end in Wow, they are equally in love? maybe we just don't hear about those happy people, maybe they are the ones you see in the paper who are celebrating 50 years together.. or maybe it was a miserable 50 years, or maybe they just learned the secret of weathering the storms, finding and giving comfort. It could end up being a thing that just happened, "back in the day" and doesn't fit today standards.
It will remain one of those questions, I would love to ask my Mom. Trouble is life took her when I was only 30. She was 31 when I was born, and I got to spend 30 years with her, but most of the grown up part was spent, trying to please a man who couldn't be pleased. Just as the life questions began surfacing, she left me to find the answers on my own. Wonder what she would think of me now. Did I even measure up, did she wish she hugged me more?Were her needs ever met? I will have to wait for Heaven to get those answers. In the meantime, I am stuck here, looking for love and finding it not.
To be continued....