The Mystery of the Missing Confidence

4/26/2013

I woke up this morning feeling less than wonderful or blessed today.

I’m not sure what it is. Could be a number of things. Going through my hormonal cycle and dealing with the stomach pains, mood swings, and so on probably is what causing it, (come on, common sense should tell you what that means).

But here’s the catch to it. For the past few days, (since the fight with my boyfriend), I’ve been doing good as far as my behavior and actions around him. I haven’t been focused on what he’s doing with his phone, I’ve been keeping a cool demeanor when he tells me things, I’ve been putting into practice of “assuming the most innocent” possibility when it comes to things that before I usually wouldn’t like him doing, and I’ve been good at controlling my emotions around him.

Listen to this: this morning I woke up at 6:30 AM. I’ve been doing that a lot lately with me being unemployed. I hate not working; it disturbs me more than anything else. What’s worse is I hate having to depend on my boyfriend and my mother for money. This eats a lot at my ego and makes me feel horrible. My mother, who would usually get on me about looking for a job and so on, hasn’t been lately. She sees what I’m doing and how I’m applying, and the fact I’ve been staying on top of the house when it comes to cleaning and so forth makes her proud.

I’ve been trying really hard to get a job. And I don’t think I do enough at times. I’ve gotten down to a schedule to where I spend a certain amount of time applying, a certain amount of time cleaning, and then a certain amount of time outside the house.

Today, it’s different. I’m torn and struggling.

When I got up this morning, I actually spent a good five minutes looking for my boyfriend’s phone. Why? Well, giving an obvious excuse would be to say that he tends to leave his phone on the floor and I didn’t want to step on it stumbling through the dark room and be blamed for breaking it. The real reason? I wanted to open it, see if anyone’s texted him or called him or to go through his messages and see what kinds of conversations he’s been having and so on….

Disturbing? Very much so. This violates the privacy I’ve been promising to give him and the practices I’ve been preaching about myself. Did I find his phone? Not really. But he did get up at some point in the night to use the bathroom, so I’m figuring most likely, he has the phone in his pocket or he put it somewhere so to not let it get stepped on.

Why am I concerned or obsessed over his phone? To get right down to it, my boyfriend needs to have contact with certain people to know how things are going in his hometown of El Centro. One of the people that he has contact with is one of his ex-girlfriends, who will remain unnamed, that he dated before me. Now, I could go into rambling and talking about how this girl makes me feel insecure, I can’t trust him with her, blah blah blah, but that’s not healthy, really. All of that, in honesty, is speculation and assumption, and that destroys a relationship fast. It’s what’s been poisoning my relationship for almost a year now.

Here’s the facts: so as not to blast my boyfriend’s privacy online, his ex-girlfriend, for reasons I will not disclose, is still very much close to his family and it seems that the two of them have a mutual and calm friendship between them. That’s the facts. Those are at least the important facts that I can share from my boyfriend’s point of view. Anything else beyond that doesn’t matter. Now, because she is very close to his family, he doesn’t want to give her ammunition to go back to his family or run around his hometown saying negative things about him, ( I can understand that, especially if he’s had experience with it concerning ex-girlfriends before). So he doesn’t wave our relationship in front of her.

So, what does my boyfriend do to respect our relationship? For one, when he’s with me, he doesn’t answer her calls or reply to her messages. This is true. Now, before I would get on his case a lot about her messaging him and calling him like crazy. He, however, pointed something out to me that made a lot of sense. He said this to me:

“Liz, do you think I’m telepathically telling her to call me and message me when I’m with you? Do you think that she, being two hours away, knows everything that I’m doing during the day or who I’m with? Do you think I control her or ask her to do this or tell her specifically what times of the day I’m with you to piss you off?”

He has a point. My boyfriend doesn’t have control over her and to be fair, he spent three days in his hometown without me and I didn’t know what he was doing during the day when I called or texted him. But he always got back to me and I assured myself that regardless of him responding or not, he still got and obviously read the texts I sent him. Same thing with my friends or my family.

Keeping my ego, emotions and jealousy out of this, I’m trying very hard to program in my head this sense of apathy towards him and his phone. The other day he was on the phone with her and I could hear the entirety of the conversation. I kept telling myself, “I don’t care that he’s talking to her because I’ve got more important things to worry about.” I did, too. I was cooking dinner, applying for jobs, looking for meet-up groups and so on. I kept myself mentally busy. At the same time, I think my boyfriend intentionally left the bedroom door open and was talking loudly for a reason. In a way, it provided me comfort to at least hear his side of the conversation. That gave me security.

And afterwards? He pulled me into the room with him and started venting to me about the conversation. I listened to him, and while I didn’t like some of things he was telling me, this is what went through my head: I may not like what he tells me, but that doesn’t mean I should get mad at him that he is telling me.

That’s what changed in my boyfriend’s perspective. I kept a calm demeanor, appearing unbiased and while I gave my opinion on things that he told me, I didn’t get upset. Later on in the night, just to reaffirm that I want this to continue, I thanked and showed him appreciation for being completely honest with me. I told him that I might not like some of the things he tells me, I promised to keep calm and not get upset at him. He also thanked me, joking around and said, “thank you for not getting mad and not ruining my night.” We had a nice night after that, and a pretty good couple of days, too.

On top of all that, that night I had another of my insecure dreams where I’m confronting his ex-girlfriend. I would usually have these dreams and it would concern him cheating on me with her, kissing her in front of me, choosing her over me and so on. My insecurities provoking my fears. Not this time. This was the second dream I’ve had where confronting her turned on its head. The first one was more about my ego and the sense that I was winning him from her. Not this one, it was much different.

In the dream, I was talking to his ex-girlfriend’s sister and mother at a picnic table. They were telling me how his ex-girlfriend would wear dresses with roses and carnations to attract him because he was fond of it when the two were dating. They bragged and boasted about her and their old relationship to me. She even came up to me in a floral gown and said to me, “See? He sees roses and he automatically comes running back home to me.” My boyfriend wasn’t anywhere near her, though, but instead, off playing with his cousins, nieces and nephews. It was a family get-together. Instead of getting upset and butt hurt over my dream-encounter with her, I just told her, “Look, I’m here to enjoy myself and have fun. So is he.” And I walked away. My dream ended there, but I felt a sense of pride in myself that I felt enough confidence in my dream to confront my fears.

I still remember the dream clearly. But more so than that, I remember the feeling of confidence that I had and security in myself. Today, I might not be feeling much of it, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not still that person I want to be.

My boyfriend is a good guy. He does what he feels is right to try and make everyone happy. He’s no different from any other guy who just wants his day to go by as smoothly, comfortably, and as easy-going as possible. He recognizes he’s not always going to have those days, but he wants those stressful moments at home to be as few and limited as possible, and having a girlfriend that is confident and trusts him is a way to make sure of that.

Right now my boyfriend is still asleep. It’s 8:25 AM. I’m going to let him sleep since he has his graveyard shift tonight literally twelve hours from now. When he wakes up I’ll give him a hug and a kiss, tell him good morning, ask him if he’s hungry for breakfast, and tell him he’s an amazing boyfriend and he makes me very happy just being next to me at night.

So I end this blog with a message:

Confidence is hard to practice and put into discipline. It takes baby steps. It takes multiple techniques. My favorite is the “I Like Myself Game” (which I’ll go over another time). It improves the self-esteem, makes you happy, great to be around, and changes your perspective on the world. Think of it in many ways as the “Law of Attraction,” you change how you see yourself and the world, the world will change how it sees you. Like a diet or habit, it takes time. There will be days you are high, days that you are low. But confidence and a good self-esteem doesn’t go away one day out of nowhere. It’s still with you and stays with you. You don’t change. It’s what makes you smile when you wake up, what makes people gravitate to you and makes you glow. And it affects your relationship. It can change it. Trust me on this one.

Men are complicated....

4/23/2013


I'm going to start this post off by stating an unusual fact: Women are complicated, men are even more complicated.

Oddly enough, this has been proven true. At least for me and from my perspective.

I'm going to tell you an interesting story. It happened today. Me and my boyfriend got into a fight. A big one that took over from last night? Why? Over stupid, unimportant, idiotic things. The reason for the fight is not the issue, because the issue itself does not start the fight. It's the couple's behavior and reaction to the issue.

So this is what happened. I stated something to my boyfriend, (I will be the first to admit that maybe I said it in the wrong way), and he reacted negatively to it. Of course, my reaction was then fueled by his reaction, and we became two negative magnets opposing each other. The fight continued into this morning, and while I take responsibility for not letting it go and leaving my boyfriend alone when he asked me to, at the same time his behavior and aggression was not necessary or warranted, and thus the fight continued.

My boyfriend was called into work today on his day off. His words to me were to leave him alone from here on out, that time spent between the two of us would be rare, and he wasn't going to communicate any further with me, (always keep this in mind, his behavior could very easily come from a combination of frustration from the night before, lack of sleep, hunger, and annoyance with his company for calling him in on his day off and not being straightforward about his from-here-on schedule). The last words he spoke to me were these two statements: "I don't care about this relationship anymore," and "As far as I'm concerned, I'm single."

Before usually these kinds of fights would leave me emotionally drained and crying for hours over him and wanting to fix the issue right away. I came home after dropping him off, (keep in mind, it was around 11:49 AM when I finally sat down at the computer after this fight), and probably went through ten different blog drafts and ideas and so forth about this issue. I wanted to do five main things afterwords: vent out my anger about the fight, target and harass my boyfriend online and make him seem like the enemy, write about the depressed and emotional turmoil thoughts running through my mind, start talking to different guys online to boost up my ego and show my boyfriend that I can always do better than him, and go through my "Text the Romance Back," "Text Your Ex Back," and "Manology" PDF's and start theorizing and dissecting my boyfriend's behavior, (yes, one of those was more for the just-in-case probability).

I had even gotten to the point of taking a lot of my stuff out of the room he and I share and moving it into the extra room. I would figure I would spend a few days in there, give him space, and continually live out of that extra room, providing the illusion that he and I were apart. My brother, Nathan, even helped out with that, and he helped me move some things into it, assuring me that it was a good idea.

Then something funny happened. It was around 2:30 PM that my boyfriend called me from work. He sounded calm, but upset over the environment he was working in. He told me that a restaurant nearby was hiring and that I should check it out. He asked me to come by and join him on his lunch break. I told him that I would.

During lunch, (it was more like dinner, since it was around 5 PM when we ate), my boyfriend was extremely exhausted and frustrated with his work that he didn't seem to want to talk about the fight anymore. However, when I asked him where he and I stood about our relationship, he still stood firmly about us not spending time together anymore and me leaving him alone. He told me, (as he always does when we have a fight), that it's up to me if we were together or not. I didn't feel satisfied by this answer, so I didn't tell him where we stood. He was very tired and was nearly falling asleep in front of me, so I didn't bother much with it.

After we ate, he clocked back on and I went to hang out in the Target parking lot across the street, resting in my car and playing Magic Towers Solitaire on my iPod Touch. Around 6:10 PM, (fifty minutes before clocking out), my boyfriend called me to see where I was and asking what I was doing. When I told him, he asked, (in a non-hostile manner), what I was doing over there and insisted on me going back over to his work and hanging out in the car there. So I did.

Surprisingly enough, my boyfriend's attitude had seemingly changed. He walked past the car and was laughing, and even though there was still stress with his company, (he had to call in to clock out, and no one was answering), he got into the car. Exhausted still, he started venting about his company and stated that since I was there when he called, he had his girlfriend as a witness. He paused the first time when he called me his girlfriend, (yes, I noticed), but the several times after he said it without any hesitation. Then by the time we got home, he was laughing and joking around. Even loving and affectionate, asking for a hug when he was in the room.

I don't know what's going through his head. If he was a girl, he would be looked as almost bipolar or hormonal. But he's not. And what bothers me is the issue that started the fight still hadn't been addressed and there was no solution to it. I didn't feel any satisfaction from it, nor do I feel any from this relationship.

If I could describe it well, I feel emotionally detached from this relationship at this moment, (not saying indefinitely, but definitely at this moment). I want to leave him alone, but it's like I want to be left alone, more than anything. Almost an apathetic feeling, that I don't care or don't want to care. Obviously I do care, (I wouldn't be in the relationship right now if I didn't), but the fighting and everything has left me emotionally traumatized to the point that, while I might move the blankets and pillows back into the room, I'm not ready to move everything back. Like this thought in my head telling me "it will happen again, just watch."

Acknowledging a sad fact that I think my boyfriend is slowly starting to realize: I am NOT afraid to lose him. I'm not. I told my brother this today. I am an amazing girl, (Nathan was surprised to hear this come out of my mouth), and while yes, I am a big girl, I carry my curves very well and I am incredibly sexy and beautiful. My personality alone is enough to leave guys drooling, (I'm intelligent, hard-working, considerate and kind, and go above and beyond for everything and anyone). And for the longest time I never really saw that. I knew I had a good personality, but I could never get it through my head exactly what my boyfriend saw and loved about me.

Then I bought Michael Fiore's "Text the Romance Back" and "Text Your Ex Back" programs, accompanied with some Carrie Engel and Nick Bastion works, and purchased Tyrese Gibson and Rev Run's, (yes, of RUN DMC), "Manology." And these are what opened my eyes entirely. I started to see how wonderful a person I was, and after a few weeks of utilizing these tools, I started to see more than just that. The same person that my boyfriend loved was the same woman that different guys were chasing after and disappointed that was taken. I started building confidence in myself that started to draw guys to me. Sending out just one flirtatious, but harmful text to several of my male friends suddenly had them texting me every day, wanting to ask me questions, and constantly asking how things were with my boyfriend. While I built confidence in myself and making myself a better, stronger woman, it seems to have sparked some insecurity in my boyfriend.

Maybe for the longest time I feared about losing him, and now that I'm not afraid of losing him, (because I've come to the reality that all relationships will end sooner or later), is it now that he's afraid of losing me?

Introduction

Before I really start to get into this blog, I need to introduce some inevitable facts to you.

1) I am 22 years old female journalism student from San Diego, who is currently looking to help support her family in tough financial times and make herself independent and stand on her own two feet.

2) NOT THAT IT MATTERS, but I'm also a Caucasian woman living with my typical suburban Caucasian family, (yes, we have a picket fence and a small dog that we lovingly call Squeaky).

3) And the third most important thing is that I have been in a relationship for a year and a half with a 25 year old Hispanic man that, for his privacy's sake, we will call Logan. Just the first name I thought up. A lot of these postings will surround him, my relationship with him, and things that really do affect me and him and my family.

4) Because I love my family dearly, I won't really specify their names, but my brother's and my father's I will state, because not a lot of problems surround them and a lot of the time, many funny things come out of their mouths and I'm very proud of them. My Mom will only be addressed to as my Mom. My brother is named Nathan. And my Dad, whom I will call Dad, will often make references to himself, so to him the name Chuck is addressed.

5) I do not attempt to offend, insult, or make anyone feel uncomfortable by any means necessary. If I make a joke or tease something, please keep in mind it is all done in good fun and I never really make any stereotypical or racial remarks. I'm blunt, honest, clear, and straightforward. These are my thoughts, my honest opinions on things, and bear in mind that this is for me to vent out and get off my chest. I have a lot of things to say, a lot of things to comment on, and many times will blow off the handle venting and ranting about things that, quite frankly, won't make sense. I try to utilize humor, music, pop culture references, and so on to make everything easier to relate to.

I am only 22. I'm the same as someone's daughter, sister, mother, friend, cousin, niece, student, so on. I am Every Woman. I am Every Girl. I am Every Person. (I do hope someone is catching on to this literature reference I'm making). I am blunt, honest, and sincerely emotional. I don't apologize for any of it. Those who apologize for how they feel feel guilty about what they feel.

I leave this blog with this comment: Don't EVER feel bad for how you feel, think, and what you do and say. However, that doesn't mean that what you think, feel, and say don't have consequences or can't be changed. Human beings have a right and freedom to feel, think and say what they like. And like that, human beings also have control over what they feel, think, say and react to. That comes from a change in behavior, mind, and attitude.

And that's what my blog is about. A change in behavior, mind, attitude, and thought. I'll make several references and quotes from many different professionals and sources that have changed me, (I might even provide links and ways to get a hold of them), but bear in mind that this worked for me, might work for you, but you don't have to follow or agree with everything that I am saying.

With that said, let's get started.....