The recent breakup with Mr. Fob
has me reflecting on the past year, and wondering where we went wrong. What
things happened that we could have done differently? It is interesting where my mind has taken me.
I was reminded of something I learned little by little as a young boy while
camping with my family.
I always have enjoyed going
camping. Growing up it was always fun to
go out in nature and see the beauty that exists there. One of my favorite parts
about camping is to sit around the campfire and admire the beauty that the
flames create. Each time my dad would
start a fire, he would teach me how to properly build a fire. He taught me to
start with small sticks and twigs, with plenty of kindling. Little by little we
would add larger pieces of wood to the fire until we were able to add a log to
the fire that would allow the fire to burn without as much effort on our
parts. More than one time I was a little
over zealous, and added a larger log too quickly. Often the result was the fire
being completely snuffed out. When that
happened we had to start over with small twigs and kindling, repeating the
process until the fire could handle the larger log.
Building a relationship is a lot
like building a campfire. Love quickly ignites and burns quickly as couples
learn more about one another, similar to the kindling starting a fire. Often
times these feelings burn out quickly, and a crush or a fleeting feeling of
love burns out quickly. At times we are lucky, and find that the feelings grow deeper.
We are able to add increasingly bigger and more complex feelings into our
relationships. Holding hands may lead to the first kiss, and on and so forth. Different people react to different
situations. Some situations provide a perfect environment for the flames of
love to burn brighter, while other situations may act like placing a large log
on a small fire and snuff it out.
I think that is what happened to
Mr. Fob and I. We added too many complex situations into our relationship at
once. Things had been going well for several months. We were excited about how
things were going, and we decided to move in together. That alone was a big deal for me. It was
stressful, but exhilarating at the same time. Moving in together also meant
that our children came to stay with us, sometimes putting seven children into
the house. Along with those issues was my need to have some sense of privacy in
the community, and the stress that came with interacting with the neighbors. To
top it all off, Mr. Fob (understandably) wanted to meet my family and become a
part of their traditions. Looking back, I think we were a little over zealous,
much like I had been when building fires in my youth. We simply added too many
big aspects to the relationship at once. Rather than trying to tackle smaller
things first, we forced a lot of them onto ourselves at once.
In future relationships I need
to remember that time is something that I do have. It is not a race to live in the same house,
nor do I need to have everything I had in my marriage all at once. It takes
time, patience, and a lot of work to make a relationship work. If too many
things are thrown at a relationship at once, the couple cannot give the proper
attention to each issue that comes up. Eventually it all becomes overwhelming,
and the relationship dies. And that isn’t fun for anyone.
