X is for eXes

My wonderful, beautiful Irishman has an ex. Ex-wife to be exact. And like a lot of "exes", there are some strong feelings there.

Then today, I came across this on a image-share website. It was captioned "My ex used to call me 'man-child'".

All I see is sheer joy on his face and why wouldn't someone want that for anyone they purport to love? And, as I tend to do, I started thinking (over-thinking?) about what their relationship may have been like and what the expectations of the relationship were going in.

Was this "man-child" quality part of the reason they broke up? The caption lends evidence that it played a part. And I started thinking of relationships in general and how we approach them. I think one of the bigger mistakes we make--especially when we're younger--is to assume that the other person will change for us. "If he loved me enough, he wouldn't be so childish." What about the reverse of that? "If I loved him enough, I would allow him to be who he is." And in the end that's what we need to do. Love the people we found for exactly who they are. AND for exactly who they are not.

My J loves, loves, LOVES guns and watching gun programs on TV. Me? Not so much. But I wouldn't ever expect him to give that up because I don't share that passion with him. He loves video games in which you shoot people and blow stuff up. I've never played one of those types of games in my life. But I don't ever want him to stop doing what brings him happiness.

I don't claim to have figured it all out and that if my advice were heeded the divorce rate would drop to all-time lows. What I do know is that there isn't one thing I ever want to change about J. I'm not saying he's perfect. No one is. But he's exactly who he's meant to be. And if he does want to change something about himself FOR himself, I will be there by his side every step of the way.