baseballygirl's blog about her DH being very jealous after BM cheated on him made me start thinking about things that we bring into relationships because of past relationships in our lives.

Maybe it's the psych major and social worker in me talking, but I'm always trying to figure out what makes people who they are. This includes myself. Why they (or I) do/say/act/think the things they do. I think every relationship (romantic and non-romantic) leaves little marks on us that affect how we go forward. Hopefully in good ways as well as bad. I'm hoping we all learn things from each relationship that we take forward into the next, as to not repeat our mistakes. But, that blog made me think about, what I do in my relationship that is a direct result of my past ones.

One thing I definitely have noticed and am always working on is insecurity (not about who I am, but about relationships I'm in). Before my current SO, I dated a long line of non-communicators. Trying to get feelings out of them was nearly impossible. So I never knew where they stood, where our relationship stood, if we were "okay". It made me really insecure. My break-ups seemed to come out of nowhere and always blindsided me because I was dating men that never voiced that things weren't okay with them. How in the hell are you supposed to fix something that you don't know about? So now, I'm dating the most communicative man I've ever met, THANK GOD. Sometimes, he won't stop communicating long after I want him to. LOL! Very early on in our relationship I could see myself getting insecure when I hadn't heard from him recently enough, etc. I would start panicking internally wondering if everything was okay, maybe he wanted to dump me, blah blah blah. I could feel myself wanting to be needy but tried so hard to not let myself be that way. Needy always is annoying. I straight up told him about my past relationships, how silence from his end freaked me out, and please bare with me and understand I realize this crazy part of myself and am working on it. He totally was awesome and understood and stepped up on the texting/calling. Now that we are much further in our relationship and he lets me know when anything is bothering him, I feel much more secure and don't really have that problem anymore. I'm sure I have other, hahaha, but that one is better. I'm also so, SO thankful my SO has been in counseling for a long time and is always self-reflecting on his behavior, his role in things, his faults, taking responsibility for his actions, and always trying to make things better. I love him so much for it and it makes our relationship so much better because we both realize having a good relationship is hard work and doesn't just magically happen.

I'm curious if anyone else ever self reflects about this kind of stuff within themselves? Do you ever notice things you do or think that you know are leftovers from past relationships? Do you voice those to your partners or try and change your behavior or thoughts? I think it's easier to see this stuff in others than it is in ourselves because we justify our own behaviors to ourselves all the time.

Deep thoughts by forestfairy....

hahahaha! I'll shut up now.