Learning to Love and Be Open Again

Posted by seaofneptunecloseAuthor: seaofneptune Name:
Email: seaofneptune@gmail.com
Site: http://seaofneptune-blog.net
About: I am currently a college student working on getting out into the world. I have a great relationship and live with my boyfriend and we have one pet. I'm a bit new to the blog scene, but I have one of my own at "seaofneptune-blog.net" that focuses around sexuality and sex toy reviews. I have been enjoying learning more on the subject through reviews and the people I have met. I am also very geeky and a bit of a movie buff.See Authors Posts (11)

Growing up I managed to end up with my own baggage that centered on trust issues (mainly with men), self-confidence, and not wanting to be open towards being in a relationship or even as a person in general. You remember that shy nerdy/geeky girl that sat in your classes that got teased or whispered about? Yeah, that nerdy/geeky girl was me….quiet and shy with long frizzy hair, often in her own world (I like to compare myself as a child to Lilo from Lilo and Stitch), and quirky. I was always nice to everyone but that unfortunately didn’t save me from being teased throughout fifth grade and middle school. Boys at school would like to ask me out or to a school dance as a joke. Between this, society, and my father I began to grow my trust issues towards men and relationships.
My father because he abused alcohol and I often had to deal with him while he was drunk and forced to fight against the emotional hurt I received from it all. It was clear to me that my parents had an unhealthy marriage since we moved to a new state when I was young. I had to deal with my mother going back and forth between wanting to leave my father to acting like nothing happened. I can remember a few times when she would pop into my room and say “Have your important possessions packed up just in case, we might leave soon.” So I sat packing my things, worrying about what would happen to my family if we left. This padded my issues with relationships; I swore to myself that this would never happen to me ever. I began to wonder if even being in any relationship would work for me, why bother if I would end up unhappy and everything would go bad anyways. Watching my parents argue and family members of mine get divorced, I wondered if I wanted to put time and effort in something if it would just go to waste.
As I said earlier, society didn’t help my issues much either – I took on that mentality growing up that “Guys were only after one thing” and “They have no problem screwing you, but when you get pregnant…they’ll just leave you” up until I was close to 22 years old. I’m not going to even begin on the body image issues that society helped me developed by this time. Throughout high school I never wanted to date anyone, to the point where my good friends would joke about me not having any hormones or one even eventually asked if I was a lesbian. I felt like I knew that I wasn’t going to be happy in a relationship and I knew that I definitely wasn’t that supermodel woman that all the boys drooled over. So why should I bother? Well, I did bother eventually and that left me with no luck with both guys that I tried to date. They both ended up standing me up when we were supposed to go out. Yeah, well that left more bad marks for guys on that record…
One morning I woke up, I decided that maybe I could put my commitment issues aside and actually try dating someone. Well, that ended up leading me to one more strike out with a guy during a year of college that left me disappointed and even more disillusioned than before. Well, it was partly my fault because I assumed that it was me all along. That he was interested in other girls because I had faults.
Now, we’ve made it to the point of my article – I wanted to give you a little more background on what made me the way that I was.
It all changed when I ran into this very attractive young man on campus during one of my work days. Just what I liked: tall, with dark hair, glasses, and a little younger than me. He was polite, had great taste in music (We finally started talking more when I commented on his band t-shirt), and luckily he seemed very interested in me. After this moment, it all became history for a very great relationship that I am currently in today.
Where did the big change come from? It was all my partner’s doing – he gave me what I needed in a relationship and then some. He managed to erase the issues that I had with men through our first year together. He gave me what I secretly wanted all along support, caring, and most of all love. Luckily he was always patient to work with me and get past my barriers. He helped me to learn that guys weren’t all the same. I am happy that he loves me for who I am and doesn’t ever see any flaws that I think that I may have. He and I have both come from backgrounds with fighting parents so neither of us ever likes to raise our voices at each other, which makes it easier to work out any debates that we may have. He helped me to be open by giving me someone that would listen when I needed someone to talk to and worked with me to get over any problems that I may have.
He showed me that he was willing to put forth effort in our relationship by being patient with me and helping me to work through my issues. I remember the first night he told me that he loved me and he didn’t want to lose me. I knew that I was beginning to feel the same way about him and my barrier was beginning to fall away. I cried myself to sleep because I was relieved but at the same time I was starting to feel so vulnerable. He eventually learned about my family background and my childhood; things I wouldn’t even talk to my closest friends about. He told me he would help me work through it and he didn’t look at me any differently. He and I have an open relationship and not the same kind of open relationship that you’re thinking about. I mean that we communicate openly with each other about our thoughts, feelings, if we’re upset with one another, and even things regarding sex and our sexuality.
I love and enjoy our relationship so much and I am glad that it’s helped me to open up to someone. I don’t keep everything locked away like I used to. I admit that I still have trouble opening up on some occasions. It’s been such a learning experience that I wouldn’t want to trade for anything. I’m looking forward to the time we may have in the future.

By SeaofNeptune