our relationship secret
how we make it work
we create safeness
safeness the centre of it all, without feeling safe none of the others ‘secrets’ can truly survive.
and all the ‘secrets’ intertwine with one another.
creating safeness; makes us feel comfortable enough to openly communicate and allows us to be honest with each other which then builds trust.
creating safeness; makes it easier for us to understand, empathize, appreciate and consider each other.
honesty & openness
the first and only thing i have and will ever ask of matt is honesty.
honesty above all else.
because being in a relationship without trust isn’t fun, i’ve been there.
when there is honesty, there is openness. we cannot have openness without being honest and vice versa.
that means, when one of us openly communicates and is honest, we listen and choose to either understand or empathize.
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to be honest you must feel safe enough to openly communicate.
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open communication
we also communicate, all day everyday without hesitation.
when i first met matt, he hated texting. now, texting is the way we connect and communicate throughout the day.
when matt first met me, i hated talking on the phone, now we talk on the phone or face-time when we don’t see each other. we even face-time on the days we see each other.
we talk about everything, some might even think we overshare.
we tell each other when we are feeling good, when we aren’t feeling so great.
we give each other feedback, we speak our opinion.
we don’t leave anything up to interpretation or assumptions.
we both choose to communicate even if it feels uncomfortable in the moment.
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without safeness, there can’t be open communication.
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trust
and without honesty, openness, and communication, you cannot build trust.
and without trust, we live in an insecure and paranoid world.
a relationship without trust sucks, and it makes the relationship that much harder.
let me try to put it into perspective; the truth will eventually almost always come out in some way.
and as uncomfortable as the truth might be in the moment, it is a million times harder to have to deal with the truth and also needing to rebuild the broken trust.
there is no truth that is harder to fix than broken trust. and once the trust is broken, it will never the same.
anyone who has had their trust broken, knows how it not only affects the current relationship but any future relationship and how it can spill into other aspects of your life; self worth, self love, self confidence, the list goes on.
i can even say without trust, there is no relationship.
before i met matt, i had experienced relationships without trust, it took me years to recover or even want to get into another relationship. life was easier alone.
even though i can say with confidence that matt and i wholeheartedly trust each other.
do i still have insecure moments? yes
do i still worry about the things out of my control? yes
do i still find my mind making up it’s own stories? yes
does my past experience still affect me? yes
do i know that it’s not matt and it’s me? yes
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we maintain our trust for each other by committing to honesty and open communication with each other.
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understanding & empathy
honesty, open communication, trust also needs a level of understanding and empathy.
we understand and empathize with each other.
not only do we understand when one of us might need a day to ourselves, we also show nothing but empathy towards each other.
we can not expect someone to continue to be honest, open and communicate with us if when they do, we react negatively with anything but understanding and empathy.
matt and i also ask questions, we ask a lot of questions because we choose to understand and empathize and that is impossible without all the information.
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to understand and empathize with each other; we both must feel safe enough in our own mind and body to not feel threaten or insecure.
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appreciation & consideration
when you have everything mentioned above, then the last two should come pretty easily or naturally.
matt and i appreciate each other for everything; no matter how big or little.
we say thank you, for everyday things like driving, cooking, cleaning, and even for things like, calling each other out, and sharing areas we would like the other to work on.
we choose to appreciate the good, and the bad.
matt and i also consider each other ALL the time and not only when it’s convenient to do so.
we take turns without keeping count.
we take turns paying for the bill, knowing that it will all equal out at the end of the day.
if and when both of us are feeling off at the same time without acknowledgement, one of us will step up and shift our energy.
we not only do things that we know the other person enjoys, we encourage it and happily do it even if it’s not our thing.
we even consider what each of us prefers doing or is better at;
he is the better cook, i don’t mind cleaning so he cooks, i clean.
he has more street sense, i am better at planning, so he takes the lead when we are out, i take care of the planning.
he has better grammar, i am more organized so he corrects my english, and i put things in his/our schedule.
this also doesn’t mean that i never cook, or he never cleans; it just means we appreciate and consider what we do for each other.
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we literally do not go a day without appreciating or considering each other for something.
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this was way longer than i anticipated so if you made it this far, thank you and you have to know that
none of this is possible without creating safeness.
safeness to be your authentic self, to feel comfortable enough to be who you truly are, no matter how weird you are.
