Until that moment in time comes to its natural ending

I don't know what the rules are of being in a relationship with someone

I think that in history people just jumped into marriage fairly quickly

I mean some turn out great and others turned out terrible

I think in my family, my parents didn't seem to love each other

I have no idea of how my parents met

Was it love at first sight, was it just a paring out of sheer contact

I think this story is significant to me because I feel like it is the first relationship you are exposed to and that you literally live through and it is your first model of what a relationship should be

It is significant because I still do not know if they were ever happy, especially not in the early years

I remember all the fights, the dolls being thrown around, the unhappiness in the air, I don't think I think about it often enough to realize that this is perhaps the reason for how I interact with others

I think that I want to ignore its role in how I carry myself when I am with someone but i think their relationship definitely affected how I am

I think that I am someone who feels starved for affection because I crave it so much but I am also very careful about showing that to someone

But once I do, I get easily attached to the point that I don't want that affection to stop and I get defensive and argumentative about the time that i get for it

I think that I also don't talk to the person I'm with because I was never listened to in our household, my opinion was invalidated constantly yet all the blame still always fell on me 

I think that makes me want to overcompensate because I want to be listened to, sometimes to the point that I forgot whether I am listening too, that doesn't mean that I am wrong for doing so because I want my partner to listen to me and value what I say, I want someone who wants to hear me talk all the time and wants to listen to the whole story and trying to not interrupt because of how bad they want to know

I think that it's also very easy for me to close down and say nothing because it's also how my others would respond, I do it more because I don't know how to voice my anger without fighting because I know how easy it is for people to become violent or unfriendly, I become silent because I feel like my words aren't being listened to, that I assume this other person is capable of figuring out what provoked the response and it's something I have to work on 

Now I don't silence myself but I still avoid feeling pain, and so I silence the other person because they aren't doing enough and I think that's also related to the shutting out (silent treatment) passive aggressive argument back and forth my parents had in their relationship

I think that I also don't know how to respond to someone when the say I love you because I never heard it said between my mom and my dad or even toward us, I think that I viewed it as the single most meaningful words on Earth that I would only ever say to the person who showed me that they loved me, the person who I would open up to, the person who did things that I didn't think anyone else would do

I think that I quickly realized not everyone gave the words as much meaning as I did so I mistrusted people who could say it so quickly, I think now I think that each person has a different way of loving and expressing love and that I cannot say those words until I feel like this person has gotten to know me completely or as much as my bestfriends have, this person has to see me at my most stressed and at my worst before I can finally mean the words I love you

I think it's hard for me to be in a relationship and be passive because I lived in a household that problems often went unsolved and most of the problems were left on one person and I definitely want someone who sees me as their equal, someone who is as willing to be involved in our children's lives (if we chose that for ourselves), someone who encourages my passion and my dreams, but I also want someone that I can talk to as my partner, I want someone who comes home excited to tell me about their day, I want to be someone who they can come to to tell me what they want from life and how they want to do that, I want to be someone who can care for another and not be afraid that the other person will give up, I don't want to carry the weight that someone will give up on me anymore because I am worth way more than someone making that promise, I want someone who doesn't need to make a promise and makes sure to stick around and I want someone that I feel is worth each others time for the moment in time that we decide or feel in our hearts until that moment decides to end