When You Love A Person Who Comes From A Broken Family

 When You Love A Person Who Comes From A Broken Family 

When you meet someone who comes from a broken family you probably won’t know it right away. They’ll do their best to blend in, to watch their words, to make sure they seem like everyone else. It’s a habit they’ve picked up over the years. How easy it is to look like all the rest. How easy it is to perform the same dance and routine.

Wear the right clothes. Say the right things. Don’t let your guard down. Never allude to the fact there’s something missing.

And what is missing? It’s the question that continues to haunt them. Was it losing their parent at a young age? Was it the divorce, the abuse, the memories that can’t seem to go away? Was it because they had to grow up faster than everyone else? Not every broken person shares the same story and their story lives inside of them triumphantly defiant, an anchor holding the weight of their heart down, but the hollowness feels eerily similar all the same. They don’t know how to quite pinpoint when it all seemed to fall apart. All they know is that they fell. Hard.

When you start dating someone from a broken family at first it might all seem too easy. That’s because it is. You’ll ask them about their upbringing, their background, what their family’s like, and without blinking they’ll gloss over the ugly details with just enough relevant information you’ll actually believe you’re getting the real story. It’s not that they’re trying to be deceptive or misleading. They just know it’s easier this way. For both of you.

They know no one wants to hear about the long nights spent in the hospital waiting room wondering if their father’s okay and no one wants to talk about how their mother fucked them up or how their sibling was an addict or about how the pain from a broken home still lingers in the back of their mind regardless how many times they will it away. No, none of these are great first date topics. Even second, third, fifth dates just never seem appropriate for this kind of insight into their life. They’ve inherently always felt strange, in a way they don’t know how to communicate, in a way they hope won’t make you walk away from them and deem them unloveable forever.

In the beginning they’ll keep it up – this nervous charade. Letting you in just enough to know the way their lips taste when they get drunk enough to kiss you in public but just far away you’ll never know what they’re like in the morning when their hair is messy and they’re quiet in their movements. It’s the game they play keeping you close enough to the wall but never so close you might actually get the chance to break through. It’s not fair, they know, but they aren’t sure how to love someone in any other way.

By now they’ve learned the subtle way to bite the inside of their lip and let the blood flow when you mention your family, the home you grew up in, the holiday traditions you’ve known for years. These things make them uneasy, jealous, even a bit threatened, in a way you’ll never be able to understand. They don’t know what that’s like – to know you can go back to the same address you knew as a kid. They don’t know what that’s like – to know you can go back to the same people you knew as a kid. Stability has always come at a cost to them and because of that they’ve learned to never expect anything from anyone.

They’ll keep it up and keep it up until you’re both exhausted and weary, rolling around in bed sheets, laughing about something completely mundane, when they realize in a moment they’ve let their guard down. A moment that means nothing to you can mean everything to them. They’ve been longing for this – this undividedness and sense of belonging they can actually touch. So they think for a moment maybe this is a place they can get comfortable – the space between you and them isn’t that far, really, when they think about it. They wonder for a moment if they could even call this space with you home, and if, for once, they might actually have found something real, something tangible in another human being. Immediately they push the thought away and remember they’re not good enough for something like that. A home. Love. A relationship that could actually work. No, these are not the things that happen to bad people, to broken people, to people who come from an unconventional home.

So that’s what you must remember when you love a person from a broken family – there will be days when they simply feel like they don’t deserve you or your love or this beautiful life you’ve created together. It’s the feeling deep down on their darkest days that they’ll never be enough. When you love a person from a broken family don’t try to fix their issues or understand everything about where they came from – just a little bit of space for them flourish is all they need to grow.

I Don’t Want To Just Be ‘Talking’, I Want To Be Loving

 I Don’t Want To Just Be ‘Talking’, I Want To Be Loving 

It seems like our generation is obsessed with “talking.” We like “talking” because it’s casual. It means no commitments. It means we can get dinner three days in a row and then ignore each other’s texts for the next week. Then get dinner again. Repeat. Recycle. Always moving in one place

Casually texting, casually chatting, casual dates, casual sex, casual talking. Nothing is serious. Nothing is permanent. Nothing is set in stone, rather etched softly in sand. We are told that “talking” is great. Because we can talk to the cute guy who works in the office suite across from us. And the curly haired boy from Tinder. And our old flame from back home. We can keep talking, talking, talking, until our vocal chords are fried and we have nothing left to text back.
But I’m tired of always talking.

I don’t just want someone to text at 2:00am, I want someone to text when I have a bad day and need someone to cheer me up. I don’t just want to just get dinner for one stray night, but enough times to memorize someone’s favorite food and drink orders. I don’t just want to just keep texting, I want to start living.

I am tired of cutting off fun conversation in the name of “keeping it cool” and going on fun dinners that end with nothing besides a “let’s do it again.” I do want to do it again, mark me down for every Friday for a while.

I am tired of ambiguous labels and ironic questions from friends who ask “what are you guys?” Because I don’t know. Nobody does.

I am tired of trying to balance multiple conversations with multiple people who also have multiple people to text back after me. I am tired of balancing, of calculating, of… “talking.”

And I’m not saying that I’m ready to commit my whole life to someone, but I am ready for more than a few hours, or a few days. I am ready for more than just talking my life away.
I am ready to start loving.

I am ready to laugh uncontrollably with someone, at jokes that only the two of us understand. I am ready to read my books leaning against someone’s legs, relishing every opportunity to be close. I am ready to not just show up for dates, but experience a relationship. I am ready to not have my smile fade when it’s time for us to go our separate ways.

I am ready to build a bond with someone that goes beyond “hanging out” and responding to each other’s snapchats. I am ready to give myself to someone, and see if someone will give themselves to me. I am ready to stop guarding my heart and hedging my bets.

And I don’t know if it will work out, but I am ready to try.

Why Rough Sex Makes Me Love My Boyfriend More Than Anything

 Why Rough Sex Makes Me Love My Boyfriend More Than Anything 

Of all the guys I have dated, none of them have made me feel as happy and loved as the one who others might say treats me the “worst”. John likes it rough. Like, calling me a ‘slut’ and leaving bruises on my ass rough.

He studied biology in college and once told me that one thing that really got him off was placing his hand on a woman’s neck during sex. He’d press his thumb against whatever vein is there and press down. Then, when he gets the girl off there’s like a sudden rush of blood there and he can feel the physical proof that he’s made her orgasm. He likes having that kind of ownership over my body.

When I met him I’d experienced different sides of the spectrum of how men like to have sex. Some like it soft, with as much foreplay as I do, while others were completely emotionally detached (which was no fun for me). I found that most men like at least a little force, if only when they’re really close to cumming. This was always the hottest part, the vivid memory I’d play over in my head again and again the next day — the moment they started to lose control over their better senses and their animal nature took over. It communicated that something about me had made these men so desirous they couldn’t help but be a bit primal about it. What isn’t hot about that?

John brought that feeling to a whole new level. Every time he walks by me in the apartment he grabs me like I’m his and he has to have me.

Often when we have sex it doesn’t start as us being in bed. I’ll be making us dinner and he’d come up behind me and press his body into mine, playing a game to see if he could distract me from my task at hand. With his body draped over mine and me pressed into a counter he’d use one hand to grab a fist full of hair and the other to roughly grab at my breasts, pulling them free from my shirt and bra. When he kisses me that way it’s like my entire body is enveloped by his. It makes me feel entirely wanted and loved.

Other times we’ll be on the couch or in bed and he’ll pull my hand over and drop it on his cock, his silent way of saying “you are mine, and I will use you as I please.” I’ll massage him for as long as I can stand it, before I need to put him in my mouth. On all fours while he lays beneath me he’ll grind his hips to get himself deeper in me and position me until he can reach his arm and me and fuck me roughly with his fingers until I’m gasping all over his dick.

Has has a special album in his iPhone that’s just photos of my ass in varying states of redness. He’ll have me lay ass up on the bed while he spanks me as many times as it takes for him to be satisfied with the color I turn.

Once he sent me a text at work that just said, “Don’t plan on sitting down tomorrow.”

There’s something about a man that knows he wants you and doesn’t treat you like you’re going to break. He cares too much to have some soft, gentle touch. He has confidence in you. He views you as his equal partner in the strong and dizzying act of physically expressing a strong and dizzying romantic love.

So much of modern dating culture is built around the concept of being cool and chill and never being the one who cares more. But you can’t have rough sex with someone while also being chill. You can’t deny that their body makes you feel, do, and say some insane things. There’s no ambiguity, just the refreshing security of knowing someone is totally and completely into you.

What If I Told You I Missed You

 What If I Told You I Missed You 

When I tell you I miss you don’t get that confused with pining after you. In that moment, when we’re speaking, I miss you. I don’t sit around in sweatpants, eating ice cream, wishing you were here and my life is unfulfilling without you… anymore. I don’t think about you every day like I used too. You’re not a memory that appears in my head constantly. I don’t wonder where you are or what you’re doing.

When your name pops up on my iPhone screen I’m momentarily sent back to when your name was a constant. When you weren’t just a memory but my reality. When you weren’t just letting me walk away without so much as hint of wanting to stop me. But yet you still talk to me. You even tell me that you miss me. That sucks.

It sucks to let someone go. To not fight for them. But then to tell them on a regular basis that you miss them. You didn’t have to miss me. You don’t have to miss me. You could have just had me. But that was your decision to make it me feel like I wasn’t worth it.
I wasn’t worth your time. I wasn’t worth arguing for.

But I have major faults in this too. I have so many of them. My ego is hard to deal with. I know that. We both knew that during and after every argument we got into. My ego is damaging but my pride is destroying. I didn’t need you and I made damn sure you knew that. I made sure that when it comes to my life, that I make the decisions and you, well you get what’s leftover.

My ego. My pride. It’s evident that I can’t say it. I can’t even let you think that maybe sometimes I do pine for you. That sometimes I do wear sweatpants, eat ice cream and think about how amazing it would be if you were here. That I wish I could show you all of the new things in my world you’re missing. That letting you go is something I struggle with daily.

That missing you has become so natural that it’s just a feeling I bury deep within me.

We both know that I’ll never come back to you with my heart in my hands begging you to love me. That was pretty clear the last time we talked. I’m strong and I’m tough so you don’t get to see the inside pieces of my heart anymore. The pieces that I’ve been trying to glue back together. The ones I assumed would magically fix themselves after time and miles between us.

But it doesn’t work that way. Miles and time do work if you’re willing to actively move on. If you’re willing to put in the work to let the other person go. To be completely honest, I’m not ready yet. I’m not ready to pretend that seeing your name on my phone or in my inbox doesn’t make my heart flutter because you want to talk to me. That you want to see how I am. That you still give a shit after all this time.

And really that’s all my ego needs.
I need to know that I had an effect on your life the same way you had on mine.

So is it ego or feelings that keep me holding onto you. Wanting to hear you tell me just one more time how great you think I am. Do I miss you or do I miss the way you manage to always say the right things?

It’s both. My feelings are real. They have to be. And as I have this internal struggle on paper it makes me realize why you let me go in the first place. My never ending back and forth about who I am, what I want and my feelings for you aren’t fair to you.

So I don’t pine for you, I crave you. I crave the feelings that were once so raw and so real to me. They seem like such a distant memory that they almost don’t feel real anymore. You and I don’t exist anymore. We never will again. So for now I’ll just miss you. Because that’s just where I am. And that’s OK.