The Campfire

                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.