Relationships: Built of
Moments
If this is your first time
with me you can check out my intro Blog, so you can see what Tomorrow Won’t Suck is all about.
So
some time last week I was watching the show the Millionaire
Matchmaker. From the title you can guess she helps people find love, namely
millionaires. I swear she must also be part psychologist (like it is some gene
passed down, lol), because she is very insightful. The things she says are
great, she is blunt yet honest and sincere. Which is probably why she is so
successful at her job as she genuinely cares for both parties involved, the
millionaire and the person she is setting them up with. Anyways, she said
something in one of the episodes I was watching, where she told the millionaire
to “make a moment” out of the situation he was in.
This
got me thinking, “What are relationships really made out of?” What makes them
so good, and yet end up so terrible sometimes? I started thinking in the
beginning phases of a relationship you are making TONS of great happy moments.
Moments that help to carry the majestic feelings of love you have forward. So
even though in the beginning you are going to have some disagreements, they
will be quickly over looked and left in the past. They are not going to be
brought up again and used in a later argument as evidence, which is what
happens in older relationships. I feel this is the case in older relationships
because both parties have stopped “Making Moments”. Your feelings of joy and
happiness with the person are not being a strongly pushed forward as some of
the other things in your relationship are.
What
is sad is that “Making Moments” is not some monumental task. The things you do
can be very small; they just need to matter to the one you are in a
relationship with. That is why I would recommend The 5 Love Languages to anyone in a
relationship (which I will review soon). It allows you to really figure out
what is important to your significant other, and make the most out of the
moments you are trying to make. Making these moments can be so many things,
recently I have taken to writing my wife a love letter. Just randomly, it was
not for any special day, I just wrote one. It had such an emotional impact on
her I was genuinely shocked. I could see the state of affairs of our relationship
and why we were in the situation we were in.
So
by taking some time now to reflect on it, I was able to see that we had not
built any really great moments in our relationship, of almost a decade, in
awhile. I stopped to really think about some truly great moment we had together
and came up with nothing. Yes, we enjoyed being around each other, we spent a
lot of time sitting and enjoying television together, but nothing that really
stood out. HOWEVER, and I capitalized it for a reason, I was able to, and with
much detail, remember many of the arguments we had over the past year. Yes I
said year! We were filling our relationship with the bad and not “Making
Moments” out of it, positive ones that is.
While
I cannot give you exact details on what to do with your partner, I can tell you
what I have been doing for mine. While we have not been able to go out often,
since we have our son, I have been working on things that are possible to do at
home. I had a problem with forgetting to say the nice things, like I did when
we first started dating. I would always compliment her and say great things of
her, like how proud I was to have her around and lucky, so I try to do that
with the letters. When we are out with people I make it a point to talk about
her accomplishments at work to them, so they and her can really see that I am
very proud of her. This helps to build a great moment, instead of poking fun at
her for things she might say or do all night. Which is what happens in a lot of
relationships after some time. That is fine and all, but you have to remember
to build moments. So yes you can tease each other and have some fun, but that
is not building a “Moment” and that is not going to cover up the awful fight
you had last week.
I
realize with that last statement that it might seem like “Making Moments” is
just a way to cover up bad things that are going on. Its not, you still need to
work on problems that are happening in the relationship, but you are more able
to remember the reasons why you love them in the first place. The scale of the
relationship won’t be tipping to the negative end, you won’t find yourself
thinking, “Why am I doing this, why am I still here?”
So
spend the time to think about some moments you can make, everyday. It’s
important, and while it may seem little, they add up over time. Just like with
reviews of restaurants, the bad ones seem to get further and passed along more,
so make sure you have lots of good ones. Have a better tomorrow guys, talk to
you soon!
