Blog Audit: Expansion 2 (Blog 9)

Once learning about relationship dissolution, I began to think about how my second last relationship ended and what factors were part of that decision.  With my ex-boyfriend Jared, I found that many things played into our break up because we were dating for three years which means a lot of memories and history together.  There were multiple relational changes that I now noticed which helped contribute to our break up.  Relational changes are relationship dynamics that may impact a relationship over time.  One of the relational changes is time spent together is lost.  With Jared, we spent a lot of time together in high school since we went to the same high school.  Once I began college, I spent most of my time there and even played a few intramural sports which took up a lot of my time.  He began working second shift so he went to work from 3 to 11 at night.  I was typically at class at around 9 till 3 so our schedules were completely opposite which didn’t allow for much time to be spent together which really put a strain on our relationship.  We typically hung out once or twice a week within my free time of the two hours in-between my class schedule and his work schedule.  The next relational change that occurred was infidelity.  Jared decided to cheat on me a few times that I knew of but I kind of just blew them off because we were in high school and at that point it really didn’t matter to me because I was doing things with other guys also.  The last girl that he cheated on me with was one of my best friends.  This one hurt a lot more since I cared about both of these people a lot.  Since I was in college, my whole life goals have begun to change and I was ready to be with someone who was serious and wanted to be in a committed relationship.  I wanted to be with someone who supported my life goals and wanted to explore the world with me.  After the last time he cheated with my best friend, we tried to work it out but the next relational change happened which was low levels of love and trust.  I began becoming interested in a few of the college guys at school because they were actually working towards a goal and wanting to further their education.  Because he was cheating, I didn’t trust him when he was spending time with other people especially girls.  Along with losing the trust, my love for him was diminishing because I was in a constant worry of what he was doing and who he was with.  For me, it was hard to love someone who I didn’t trust.  Along with relational changes, I was experiencing individual changes. 

According to Levinger’s Barrier Model, if attraction and barriers are low but the alternatives are high, then I should leave the relationship.  I was definitely running out of reasons to stay.  I wasn’t really attracted to his attitude on life and defiantly wasn’t attracted to his work ethic.  I started to grow up and look at the future things and reliability wasn’t one of those.  One of the huge barriers to leaving was the connection and that we were dating for three years.  For me, it was very hard to leave because of all the time and money that was invested in that relationship.  After looking at the attractions and the barriers, I found that the alternatives were much higher.  My alternatives were finding a guy who was going to college to better his education.  Granted Jared did go to Tech College in high school and had a great job, he wasn’t a great worker and showed no ambition.  Guys who were in college were obviously wanting to be there otherwise they wouldn’t have been attending college.  Another alternative that I took full advantage of was to explore other places to live.  After breaking up with him, I applied to UW Stout and was super eager to go somewhere else where I didn’t know anyone and wasn’t judged.  I was able to meet new people and new guys rather than being stuck to talking to guys that only went to my high school.  I could also find a guy who loved me and didn’t feel the need to cheat or hurt me. 

So this began the stages of dissolution.  The first stages is personal which is where one person isn’t happy.  For our relationship, I feel that with him cheating, that we both weren’t happy but I know for sure that I wasn’t happy.  The second stage is dyadic which is where one person tells the other partner how they are feeling.  I chose to do this over a text and I decided right away that I no longer wanted to be with him.  It did take a few months for this to completely happen since we did try to work things out a month later again but I decided again that it wasn’t worth the fight.  The third stage is called social which is when you tell your friends and family for support.  I personally only told a few of my close friends what was happening and I only told my family that we broke up and didn’t say much more.  I didn’t want my family knowing that I was cheated on and I wanted to show that I was the stronger person in the relationship to end it.  My friends knew exactly what happened.  I know that Jared told his friends that he ended the relationship and I just left it because it wasn’t worth the fight.  The fourth stage is grave dressing which is coming up with a story on why we broke up and how to address it.  My story was that we grew apart since I was in college and I wanted something new in life.  I didn’t want anyone to know that he cheated on me so I kept that out of the story.  The fifth and final state is resurrection which means to come into the world as a single individual.  I didn’t do very well being single since I wasn’t single since freshman year of high school so I entered a new relationship within two months of breaking up with Jared.

Blog Audit: Expansion 1 (Blog 8)

For me, talking about long distance relationships hit home.  14 million couples identify as being in a long distance relationship with around 32.5% of college students being in a long distance relationship.  I personally am in a long distance relationship and found that many of the things that I learned about were very true to my relationship.  The average distance for a long distance relationship is 125 miles where as my relationship is almost doubled at 245 miles apart.  My boyfriend and I decided that we would try to make a long distance relationship work because we didn’t want to wait the two years until I came home from school.  We have always had a connection and have been best friends forever.  We first started talking seriously about being more in the start of September but the one problem that we both had with starting a relationship with each other is the distance.  I decided to go to school here at Stout and he lives in my home town.  For us, that was a huge problem so I decided going home almost every weekend to show him that I was willing to make this work and that I wasn’t interested in any other guys that went to school here.  It took until late February until we finally decided to officially date.  We decided that a long distance relationship would work because we were able to communicate every day.  With the advancement in phones and being able to text, call, facetime and snapchat, we are able to talk throughout the day and night to stay in touch. 

In class, we discussed the individual level stressors which I found most of them to be very true for my relationship.  First, the initial adjustment.  It is very difficult being apart and it was a huge adjustment from seeing each other every day in high school to then seeing him once a week to once every other week and now we go about every third week.  For us, this was very hard because we can’t see each other and have that physical touch like other couples can.  Another stressor is loneliness.  I learned that men experience more loneliness which I find true in my relationship.  I found that with this past weekend of going home, that Jacob was lonelier than I felt.  Throughout the three weeks, I didn’t really feel lonely except on weekends but he said that he felt it every single day as soon as he wasn’t doing anything.  Another stressor is guilt, which women tend to feel more.  For me, this one is very true.  I feel so guilty having to walk away every time to go back to school and having to look back at him looking so sad.  I feel so bad leaving him and that I made the decision to be four hours away from him for weeks at a time.   Overload is another stressor.  I feel overload on the weeks before I go home because I feel the need to have to get all of my homework completed so I have all the time in the world to spend with Jacob and my family which makes me very stressed out that whole week and then I feel drained on the weekend.  Another stressor that I tend to experience the most is that commuting gets old.  That three and a half hour drive gets very old.  I know all of the exits that I drive past and I know exactly which gas stations to stop at.  My boyfriend knows exactly where I am by watching the clock and knowing also where each of the exits are by time where I know by miles where I am.  With going home this past weekend, I never really noticed the “stranger effect” until now.  It was actually kind of funny since now I see it.  When Jacob got to my house the first conversations were how the drive was, how school going and other small talk.  I never realized that we did that but now looking back that is out conversations for the first half hour or so.  The most challenging part of a long distance relationship is the loss of day to day intimacy.  Once we were able to sit down, Jacob jumped into my arms and we just snuggled on the chair.  Even the next day we laid in bed snuggling until almost noon and his mom told us to get up and do something with our lives but we having actually had any physical contact in three weeks so that’s all we wanted to do was snuggle.  It’s hard not being able to hold hands or snuggle when we had a long day and then only being together for a few days out of the month makes it extremely hard also. 

I also learned that there are family and social level stressors.  Many of our friends don’t think that our relationship can last because we don’t see each other very much.  My family made bets on how long that Jacob and I would last.  So far we have been together for a month and a half and most of my family said we wouldn’t last for over a month.  Also, some people don’t realize how far of a drive that I actually am and criticize me for not driving home more to see him but in reality, neither of us want to make the drive to see each other so he is very grateful that I drive home most of the time.  Another huge problem is commuting gets very expensive.  My car runs premium gas so I paid $2.89 a gallon this past weekend which it costed me around $80 just to go home and back. With Jacob driving, he has a truck so he is putting typically $80 bucks in diesel fuel every time he comes out too which can get expensive for him too.

So what helps?  For us, communication is key.  We talk most of the day and always know where each other are, who we are with, and what we are doing.  This helps with trust and shows that we are able to tell each other what we are doing and why.  Since we have been friends since third grade, we already knew a lot about each other and had a history which made starting the relationship long distance easier because of our history.  Jacob and I support each other with every decision that we make and tend to ask each other’s opinions before we make a final decision which helps our communication.  Both of our family’s support us and his friends are super supportive and make sure to keep him busy so he isn’t constantly thinking about me or missing me when I am gone.  We try to make frequent visits and we always have our visits planned out so we know the next time that we will see each other.  At this point in our relationship, I think that we have a great chance of staying together because of how great we are working out in the last few months of talking and actually dating.  

Blog Audit: Reflection

                I found that I typically write about my romantic relationships.  A lot of my blog entries talk about my ex-boyfriend Jared and how lucky I was to end that relationship.  Most of my entries discuss my relationship with Jacob and how it evolves throughout the semester to just being friends to a romantic relationship.  One of the themes or specific concerns that continue to reoccur is how crappy my high school relationship was.  I guess the old saying is true, young and dumb!  For my relationship with Jared, I still have strong emotions and hate that I was used throughout my high school years.  Dating him was a huge learning experience.  I wish I left him after the first time he cheated on me but I stayed.  It always makes me wonder where I would be today if I left him.  I also always wonder where I would be if I stayed with him.  I know if I stayed I’d be engaged already but I am very glad that I ended it before he popped the question.  My frustration with Jacob not knowing what he wanted was also an issue that I discussed because it was such a huge part of my life during the first half of the semester.  It was very hard on me not knowing what was going to happen and knowing that if we decided not to be together, how would that friendship look. 

One of the huge changes that I noticed was my entries seem to turn happier sounding once Jacob and I began dating.  I found it a lot easier to talk about topics because I was in a romantic relationship that I was able to relate the materials that we learned in class too.  I found that it was also easier to realize how and why my past relationships failed because I was more accepting of my own faults and was able to relate them to why my past relationships didn’t work out.  My seeing these, I am able to focus on my flaws in order to keep a positive and healthy relationship now and in the future.

One thing that really surprised me when re-reading my blog entries was how vulnerable I was when writing these.  After reading them, I was amazed on how open I was about my past relationships and my current relationship.  I shared a lot that I couldn’t imagine sharing with my parents.  Most of my friends know about my relationship with Jared but I like to keep my relationship with Jacob very quiet and not many people know that we are dating.  I found it very relieving to write about my relationship instead of straight telling someone about it. 

I found that two of my last entries were worth revising.  I found that I have a lot to talk about being in a long distance relationship because everything that was discussed in class was very relevant to my relationship.  It was also particularly interesting to look at because we started our relationship long distance too.  I also found it very easy to talk about relationship dissolution because there was so many different aspects in my relationship with Jared that contributed to us breaking up which make it very easy to look at and evaluate.  So at this point, I plan on expanding blog 8 and blog 9 to continue to discuss these two topics in more depth. 

One aspect of the weekly blogging that I valued the most was just being able to relieve some stress and to look at why previous relationships didn’t last and how to ensure that the relationship that I am in now continues to be healthy and positive.  This shows up in my entries because I look into my love style, attachment style, identity, how I deal with conflict, how I feel about infidelity, about my long distance relationship and past relationship dissolution along with evaluating my love language.  I chose my blog entries by looking at which ones related to my life now or related to my past relationships.  

Blog 10: The Five Love Languages

I have never heard of the five love languages before this class and found them particularly interesting.  When taking the five love language’s quiz, I thought that I would be highest in words of affirmation.  I love when my boyfriend texts me good morning and good night each night and when he is very affectionate through text messages.  I thought that my lowest would be physical touch because I hate being touched and like being on my own.  After taking the quiz, I found to be highest in quality time.  My next highest was physical touch.  My lowest two were receiving gifts and words of affirmation.  The words of affirmation was super surprising because I enjoy his text messages so much.  I was also surprised with physical touch being so high.  Once thinking about it, I guess it makes since.  My past relationships we spent a lot of time together.  With Jacob and starting a long distance relationship, for us, we don’t get that quality time together or physically get to touch each other either for weeks at a time.  When we are together, we focus on each other and talk about the future and what we plan on doing while we have some time together.  We also don’t play on our phones very much when we are at home and try to spend as much time as we can talking or going out and having some fun.  We also try each others hobbies and do things that we each want to do because of the short amount of time that we have together and make the most out of our time.   Since we only see each other every two to three weeks, physical touch is huge for him!  I typically don’t like to snuggle when falling asleep and hate holding hands in public but that is something that he loves to do and it constantly holding my hand or has his arm around my waist.  For him, he doesn’t get to physically touch me for weeks so the two days that we have together we spend all of our time very close to each other.  Now looking at it through this perspective, I can see how I value physical touch because it is nice falling asleep with him all snuggled up with me.  I still think that the rest of these qualities are part of my love language because I think all are very important but it was very interesting to see which ones I felt were more important. 

Blog 9: Relationship Dissolution

Once learning about relationship dissolution, I began to think about how my second last relationship ended and what factors were part of that decision.  With my ex-boyfriend Jared, I found that many things played into our break up because we were dating for three years.  There were multiple relational changes.  Relational changes are relationship dynamics that may impact a relationship over time.  With Jared, we spent a lot of time together in high school since we went to the same high school.  Once I began college, I spent most of my time there and even played a few intramural sports which took up a lot of my time.  He began working second shift so he went to work from 3 to 11 at night.  I was typically at class at around 9 till 3 so our schedules were completely opposite which didn’t allow for much time to be spent together which really put a strain on our relationship.  The next relational change that occurred was infidelity.  Jared decided to cheat on me a few times that I knew of but I kind of just blew them off because we were in high school and at that point it really didn’t matter to me because I was doing things with other guys also.  The last girl that he cheated on me with was one of my best friends.  Since I was in college, my whole life goals have changed and I was ready to be with someone who was serious and wanted to be in a committed relationship.  After the last time he cheated we tried to work it out but the next relational change happened which was low levels of love and trust.  I began becoming interested in a few of the college guys at school because they were actually working towards a goal and wanting to further their education.  Because he was cheating, I didn’t trust him when he was spending time with other people especially girls.  Along with losing the trust, my love for him was diminishing because I was in a constant worry of what he was doing and who he was with.  Along with relational changes, I was experiencing individual changes.

According to Levinger’s Barrier Model, if attraction and barriers are low but the alternatives are high, then I should leave the relationship.  I was definitely running out of reasons to stay.  I wasn’t really attracted to his attitude on life and defiantly wasn’t attracted to his work ethic.  I started to grow up and look at the future things and reliability wasn’t one of those.  One of the huge barriers to leaving was the connection and that we were dating for three years.  For me, it was very hard to leave because of all the time and money that was invested in that relationship.  After looking at the attractions and the barriers, I found that the alternatives were much higher.  My alternatives were finding a guy who was going to college to better his education.  Granted Jared did go to Tech College in high school and had a great job, he wasn’t a great worker and showed no ambition.  Guys who were in college were obviously ambitions otherwise they wouldn’t have been there.  Another alternative that I took full advantage of was to explore other places to live.  I was able to meet new people and new guys rather than stick to talking to guys that only went to my high school.  I could also find a guy who loved me and didn’t feel the need to cheat or hurt me.

Blog 8: Long Distance Relationships

For me, talking about long distance relationships hit home.  14 million couples identify as being in a long distance relationship with around 32.5% of college students being in a long distance relationship.  I personally am in a long distance relationship and found that many of the things that I learned about were very true to my relationship.  The average distance for a long distance relationship is 125 miles where as my relationship is almost doubled at 245 miles apart.  My boyfriend and I decided that we would try to make a long distance relationship work because we didn’t want to wait the two years until I came home from school.  We have always had a connection and have been best friends forever.  We first started talking seriously about being more in the start of September but the one problem that we both had with starting a relationship with each other is the distance.  I decided to go to school here at Stout and he lives in my home town.  For us, that was a huge problem so I decided going home almost every weekend to show him that I was willing to make this work and that I wasn’t interested in any other guys that went to school here.  It took until late February until we finally decided to officially date.  We decided that a long distance relationship would work because we were able to communicate every day.  With the advancement in phones and being able to text, call, facetime and snapchat, we are able to talk throughout the day and night to stay in touch. 

We also discussed individual stressors.  The stressors are initial adjustment, loneliness, guilt, commuting can get old, loss of day to day intimacy, and the stranger effect.  Jacob and I are affected by each and every one of these.  So what helps?  Strong communication is key.  It has also helped that we have a strong relationship history and base with living in the same town and being good friends since third grade.  It helps that we both support each other along with our families and friends supporting us and ensuring that we both stay busy so we aren’t missing each other so much.  By ensuring that we see each other every two to three weeks also helps to make sure that we do have that physical connection and we always know when we will see each other when we leave each other.  These factors defiantly help ensure that we keep a happy relationship.

Blog 7: Infidelity

Infidelity was definitely a difficult topic to talk about.  Throughout my high school years, I dated the same guy from sophomore to senior year and into my first semester of college.  Already in my sophomore year he decided to cheat on me.  I found out a few weeks later and brushed it off because it was with one of my friends and I didn’t want her to know that I knew but I quit talking to her.  He apologized and said that it would never happen again and he was just stressed with me just having surgery and not being able to do anything for a few weeks.  We were constantly fighting and I never really understood why he would get angry sometimes and then apologize right when I was ready to end the relationship.  During my first year of college, in late September, my best friend Jacob texted me that he has something important to tell me.  He told me that Jared was cheating on me and that he has been doing it for a long time, which one was the night before.  Once Jacob explained what was going on, when, and how often this was happening, it all made sense.  Every time that Jared would get angry at me, he would go and cheat.  This really hurt at the time but it made me realize the person that I would never want myself to be.  Since then, I have drastically changed my own life and decided to do everything that I’ve wanted to do that I wouldn’t have been able to if I stayed with Jared.  I dated a guy from a different school, moved all the way across the state to attend college, enjoyed parties and having fun meeting new people here at Stout.  Now Jared has moved on to one of the girls he got with and is the same person.  Sometimes I wish he could see who I turned out to be but for now, I’m perfectly happy not having to look at him or to even understand how someone could cheat on someone they love.