Do you feel like you end up in someone’s life to build them up and they just drag you down? Not in an arrogant way like “I’m so great” but in an honest way. For example, I feel like my ex was floundering when I met him. He was about to drop out of graduate school because he hated it. His boss thought he was lazy (turns out…true story) so they didn’t get along early on. Me on the other hand, I was rocking. I had a great life, crushing it in grad school, great friends, best shape of my life (the booty ??), and building my net worth. Then, I met this guy. He all of the sudden had the respect of his boss. He even said being with me made people take him more seriously (again true story). He learned to do his hair like a grownup, as well as brush AND floss his teeth. My cooking, cleaning, and doing his laundry set him up for a successful look. He was always ready to go shopping to buy new clothes. My parents thought that was really bizarre. I no longer shopped for myself but we were frequently buying him new clothes and then he wouldn’t wear most things after a time or two. I taught him to budget and invest, which he’d never been exposed to before. I taught him to save for his future and I really built him up into a somewhat better human.
Then there’s me… I took much longer to graduate because I didn’t focus on my job, wedding planning sucked my focus away from school, he was a spender and put me way behind financially, I gained weight because we ate out all the time and stress goes to your waist, I fell out of touch with some friends because he hates people and turned a few of my relationships sour. And the list goes on and on. There are studies that show the life expectancy of married men is longer than single men, and the life expectancy of single women is longer than married women. Naturally, this frightened me because I saw myself going down the rabbit hole. I was miserable, exhausted from doing it all, and being verbally abused daily. My ex, on the other hand, seemed to be getting better, well that’s a bit of a stretch. He was just not going down the rabbit hole like I was. There is only so much he’ll accomplish (plenty of other blog posts on that).
This doesn’t just apply to women. I have several guy friends who do all of the domestic chores and their wives take them for granted. It isn’t necessarily biased towards one gender. Whether you’re a man or a woman, sit back and really analyze where you were before you met your partner and where you are now. And then do the same for your partner. How do you both fair? If you find yourself not being your best, if you feel like you’ve fallen from your highest point, don’t spend another second being drug through the mud. Do what’s best for you and either make a change together as a couple or get out! Make sure your partner is lifting you up and encouraging you to be the best version of yourself. And make sure you’re with someone you also encourage and motivate. If you can relate or have anything to add, please comment below. In the meantime, I’ll just be over here, working towards building myself up again ?
