How do you view relationships in your life?

When someone I used to count as friend all of a sudden let me down in an area I never would have predicted, I really started thinking of friendships and relationships and how we regard them and how we treat them.
Sometimes telling someone "the truth" when they ask you for it may mean they turn away, cause the truth was not the the version they wanted you to feed them. If you're brave enough to stand honest, you simply must calculate that that could be an effect.
I've come to a part of my life where I calcuate it and also cherish that from others: if I ask for the true opinion, I want it regardless. It may hurt but not nearly as much as lying to yourself will hurt you, at the end of the day.

My life has virually taught me "no pain, no gain" and going through hard times, doing wrong and also being a leader has forced me to face myself and looking very deep in to that mirror at all the flaws and fears that I have. I have looked at them (still do), taken them out, turned them over, tasted them, accepted the ones I must and changed a few that were unacceptable and put the entire pack back.
I face myself daily and scrutinize myself and question my doings and even more my "feeling:s" and I think that I may therefore also take for granted that others do so too.
I sometimes forget that others may not have come that far yet, they have a few quarters left before they reach that square.
I have a lot of quarters left too, of course, and the map never ends.

I always ask my heart what is right and true, nowadays, before every decision and I care not what others advice and say, if that's in opposition of what my heart says. For many years my fear would pose as my heart, misguiding me, and back then I could not listen to my heart, because it was my fear talking. These days I see my fear when it shows up and I put my trust in my heart when I ask for guidance and now - at the age of 42 - it works, so it's a solid process in which I'm secure and at peace.

No pain, no gain = a whole lot of pain, a whole lot of gain!
:-)

******

So, The Boy had his b-day party a bit delayed, together with a friend. 

Going there, through fall landscape, was spectacular!

We're there!!

Very up-tempo:ed place...!

Gifts - that's all good!

A lively group.

Cheerful times!

:-) <3

Autumn mornings look like this, only totally dark outside nowadays.

October, for ya'!

Those colours!!!

Loving looking at birds, just as his mama!

Special times of calmer days and glorious colouring.

Lovely times.

Cosiness comes knocking - and we're all fired up for it :-)

******

I'm very proud of the relationship I have built together with my husband, because we're both committed. Not just in the sense of "being married, being in a committed relationship", I mean committed in the sense where both of us not only just look at ourselves in the mirror - we look at each other too. 

We admit to our failures and each other's failures, we talk about them and we decide to stick around, to go forward together with force and trust and goals forward. With enthusiasm even, since the pain-gain can lead you anywhere really! 

We keep letting the old relationship die, so that a new one can be born. I'd say we're brave and active in our relationship and we care for deep down real about each other's life. There's no plan B, since we are not going to be distracted from plan A, which is a relationship that's for life.

I'm ready for the new week. I hope you are too!

/A

To choose each other

I've been thinking so much these last, say four, years. I have been feeling, wondering, questioning and even worrying. The upside of a forty year crisis arriving at 38 is that when you become forty, you're pretty much done with crisis:ing!
That's how it was for me.
My crisis also happened to come at the same time as I upped and moved away from my firstborn (a true hardship) and also started a new job with unexpected challenges, for which I was not prepared.

Having said that....

Here I now find myself being 42 and really enjoying life. Loving those I have in my life and as I've talked about repeatedly in this blog: really starting to like even myself. To think that should take so many years, eh?!
As hard as it is to grasp and to even want to grasp, liking (preferably loving) yourself is a solid ground to love your husband (or wife/boyfriend/girlfriend).
This spring has deepened that understanding for me.
My husband has had a hard year with unemployment, realizing his PhD has played out its part, no money to study for but deciding to study anyway. To live off of his wife's money and on a tight, very tight, budget.
At first he went blue.... Then he awoke his fighting spirit and kicks ass (hell yeah!) right now studying two full time educations at once.
I'm impressed and proud.
At the same time we never see each other because he also tries to find extra-job and summer-job and manages well in that effort. As if that wasn't enough he needs to do things that fills his well a little, too, so he engages in politics locally and engages in The Boy's soccer club.
Whoaw!

I'm left working, commuting and sneaking out to buy a few small things that we can't afford.
And exercising! Four times a week and loving it! Coming to realize it is a fab way towards loving me.

Here's the deal though, in this blog post, my husband and I choose each other.
For deep down real. Every day.
There has been many occasions we could have given up these last four years (well all our hardship-15-years actually!!), when things were hard, weird and we'd feel spent. But we didn't.
The day we decided to become a couple, we both knew it was for life and it is.
It's an amazing thrill to get into a grown relationship and last many years, facing hard times, sticking it out and then on the other side discovering how you both grew and changed and became "even better". More interesting, more glued together and more free in heart and spirit. More relaxed, more secure.

So almost 15 years down the path we choose each other every day and we laugh and have fun together. We choose to have fun together, it doesn't happen by itself, of course.

I've thought quite a lot about this since relationships around us end and couples break up and we're like: "what?".

I've been in an abusive relationship and know that kind of horror, of course you gnaw your foot off and run. But all these marriages ending, surprises me and makes me wonder about expectations and effort.
If nothing else, it makes me glad that I am so darn stubborn :-)

That's all I have today!
I will give you some foolish shots of me and Marcus, just to amuse you:

Enjoy your weekend all you lovelies and gourgeouses out there! Remember to take care of YOU.

<3