Relationships take a lot of work. Dating, online dating, and courtship all have one goal, to give us a Relationship to thrive in. It is hard to find a healthy, attractive, and willing partner. When you do, what happens next is the most important part. I work on relationship-building as a skill set. How can I be a better partner? How can I say with this person for life?
In my joyous engagement I was missing something from her that I couldn't identify. I thought I was listening well, responding well, and behaving well. I thought we were moving things along nicely. But I could only make those assumptions about myself and my own thinking.
Spend time together. Keep checking in with each other and with yourself. "How does it feel?" Let the answer to that question guide your relationship decisions. And remember, kissing can lead to lovemaking, if you both want to head in that direction.
Divorced dads have a lot harder time staying involved in their kids' lives, even with they make every effort, keep every appointment, and ask for more time then they are given with them, post-divorce. I am that dad.
From the joy comes an additive feature that I am looking to attract into my life. I am a meta-happy person. I can see the good in awful times and will work towards and keep striving towards solutions, knowing that my joyful optimism will prevail. But that is not always the case. So I hope to find another person who is also additive with their energy and happiness. AND they share the love language of touch.
She asked me not to write about her or the kids, ever. But, I'm sorry, that's the only way I can talk about what's going on for me at this amazing juncture in my life.
The moods roll in and out as if on tides. There is no controlling the bio-rhythm of our energy overall, it's really just how we respond to the varying levels of energy. And over the past several months a low-energy day was just passing through. Yesterday, the low-energy had the feeling of maybe sticking around for a bit. That got me a bit worried.
As much as we wanted to remain in love and grow in love as parents, there were some fundamental shifts that happened in our lives and in our aspirations. What I learned from my first "touch" lover was that my needs for closeness are fundamental to my complete happiness.
As we grew into our parenting roles, we had different ideas about how that should look. And I fess up, I was unhappy. I was asking for a massive change. And in the end, we disagreed on what we wanted as a couple.