I showed Igor a private video of me in a very revealing dress and his reaction was “Wow. It looks gorgeous on you”.
Major butterflies and an ear to ear grin later, and here I am, feeling like the Queen of Egypt.
It’s all I’ve ever wanted! For the man that I am with to look at me and just think, ‘wow’. Sorry to bring it back to the ex again but he never saw me. I could be walking around naked, parading my beautiful self in front of him and he wouldn’t even look twice. Let alone once…
I only need to show my face and Igor is all over me.
He is everything I’ve always wanted. I don’t even want to be cliché but he is.
After I broke up with the ex, I wrote a list of what I had learned from the relationship and what I wanted.
- I need affection and intimacy. Not necessarily sex but I need to feel that the person I’m with wants me and is happy to be with me.
- Relationships aren’t all about giving. Although I am a people-pleaser, I deserve to be shown the same level of consideration that I show my partner. I want to be spoiled too.
- Be angrier when necessary. Don’t feel the impulse to reconcile straight away when I haven’t expressed my feelings about a situation. I don’t want my forgiving nature to be taken for granted.
- I want some level of attraction to be there. Physical and sexual. I want my partner to look at me and see the most amazing girl in the world. Ever.
- Be open. I shouldn’t be afraid to speak the truth or express myself even if I feel it will hurt my partner’s feelings.
- Learn how to communicate, even about the negative topics.
- Do not be my partner’s crutch. Support and help them but do not fix their problems.
- Be willing to accept my faults and understand that I am not perfect and take ownership of consequences.
- Be deep. Talk about the future. Come up with solutions to difficult problems together.
- Have fun. Do random things together. Learn new things and travel places.
- Give each other space to be alone.
- Fight fair.
- There isn’t a perfect “one” person for someone. There’s potential to love anybody, providing they respect you and show you love.
- Do not ever get into a long distance relationship!
Can I be so brave as to say Igor ticks literally everything up there? Shall we analyse how? Let’s do it!
I need affection and intimacy. Not necessarily sex but I need to feel that the person I’m with wants me and is happy to be with me.
This was something that was majorly missing from my ex-relationship. The intimacy. I never felt it from my ex and that was a major part of why I left him. With Igor, it’s effortless. It’s easy. The affection and intimacy is there and with it comes the sex. Good sex. And I know deep within my heart and my conscious psyche, he wants me. He showed up for me and always does the most because he wants me. He’s definitely happy to be with me – always PDA’ing without fail.
Relationships aren’t all about giving. Although I am a people-pleaser, I deserve to be shown the same level of consideration that I show my partner. I want to be spoiled too.
Relationships should be reciprocal. Give and take. It’s nice to give but it’s also nice to receive and I have received more than I feel I deserve from Igor. He’s a very thoughtful man and I appreciate every little and big thing he does for me. He considers me in everything he does. I never asked my ex for the world, all I wanted was to feel like he actually remembered I existed and valued my presence in his life.
Be angrier when necessary. Don’t feel the impulse to reconcile straight away when I haven’t expressed my feelings about a situation. I don’t want my forgiving nature to be taken for granted.
On New Year’s Day when I was all emotional and stuff I actually spoke out for myself. Of course I feared that Igor would stop liking me but I still allowed my voice to be heard. Well, actually, he wanted to hear it. He wanted me to talk to him and tell him what was up. He pushed me to speak up and I did.
I want some level of attraction to be there. Physical and sexual. I want my partner to look at me and see the most amazing girl in the world. Ever.
Oh the physical and the sexual are there. Trust me. I want him inside me like yesterday, right now and tomorrow but that’s not the point. The point is that it’s there. It hasn’t dwindled away. He sees me and I know that this man is happy to have me in his life. He sees me and I know he wants me in my entirety. He sees me and I just know he sees beauty where I see a beast. Plus he’s still going on about that dress I showed him. Apparently it’s very smiley face emoji, heart emoji, fire emoji and sexy.
Be open. I shouldn’t be afraid to speak the truth or express myself even if I feel it will hurt my partner’s feelings.
This is something I’m still learning to do. I’m just happy he gives me a safe, non-judgemental space to do so. He doesn’t blame me for feeling how I feel and he tries to be understanding when he can.
Learn how to communicate, even about the negative topics.
We communicate so well. I know it’s a struggle for both us, especially when it comes to our insecurities, but we’re trying and succeeding. The whole not getting wet issue was stressful for me and I tried my hardest to communicate how it made me feel.
Do not be my partner’s crutch. Support and help them but do not fix their problems.
He is a man who has been through a lot in his life and he doesn’t complain or make excuses. He shoulders his responsibilities and works hard to fix the problems in his life. I admire that about him. It’s nice to be dating an actual man.
Be willing to accept my faults and understand that I am not perfect and take ownership of consequences.
This shouldn’t even be there. I’m fucking perfect. But really, I only added this because my ex always said that I think I’m infallible. Which isn’t true at all. I think I’m so imperfect it’s unreal. I suffer from a massive case of blame mentality and I don’t even feel like I’m deserving of basic human affection. I do admit that I struggle with taking instruction and that is something I’m working on.
Be deep. Talk about the future. Come up with solutions to difficult problems together.
It’s too early on in our relationship for this but I know when the time is right we’ll be able to have an open and honest adult conversation. I feel comfortable enough to talk about my insecurities and he has shared things with me too so we’re doing well.
Have fun. Do random things together. Learn new things and travel places.
We go out together a lot. From city to city. We have so many things planned for the coming months. And I love it! He sees a future with me and he’s prepared to make plans with me in tow.
Give each other space to be alone.
We’ve started working on this. But he also encourages me to focus on my craft even when I want to dedicate 100% of my attention to him.
Fight fair.
This is really about not calling each other names and just expressing our concerns without attacking who the other person is. When my ex-relationship was coming to its inevitable end, my ex and I weren’t very nice to each other. I called him a ‘black hole of pessimism’ and told him all he ever did was suck the fun and joy out of everything. I still think it’s a pretty classic line.
There isn’t a perfect “one” person for someone. There’s potential to love anybody, providing they respect you and show you love.
I learnt this after I left my ex. I thought he was my “one”. He was physically and compatibly perfect for me, to a degree, but he didn’t make me happy. And that’s when I realised things like how someone looked and whether we both happened to like the same fruit were redundant. What really mattered was the respect they had for you and how they expressed their love.
Do not ever get into a long distance relationship!
I can’t do it. I did it twice and never again. If a relationship is built on a strong foundation then it can work, but introduce instability and you can just forget it.
See, he brings into this relationship everything I never had in my previous one. He’s not perfect. But he tries for me. That’s a key word: “try”. He tries and the effort he puts in is seen and acknowledged. That’s all I ever wanted my ex to do. To just try for me. That’s what it came down to in the end. But in the end it all came down.
Obviously it’s very early days with Igor and I; everything is still sweet and rose-tinted. However, things can definitely change. I’m just hoping they change for the better.
* * *
I know I paint my ex in a very bad light sometimes but he is a good guy with a good heart. Circumstance just created a lot of negative experiences for me. It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t out to break my heart. If anything he loved me so much, he just didn’t know how to show it. And because of that I never felt like he did. We were two different people who loved in two different ways and when it came down to it we just weren’t right for each other.
I wish he could share his side of the story, and maybe one day he will in his own secret journal. But for all that its worth, I’d happily play the villain in his story.
Again, Igor isn’t perfect. And by no means is he my saviour or my everything. He’s a very nice guy whose little actions get dramatized by his drama queen girlfriend. When things mean a lot to me, I tend to over-embellish, but my words represent how I feel and my feelings are usually very well embellished. I feel a lot of strong feeling for Igor. Emotional and plenty sexual. And they can really fuel my words. But realistically speaking, he too is a good guy with a good heart and all I can hope for is that we can keep alive the blossoming flower that’s our relationship.
I’ve learnt a lot from my previous relationship. Mostly about myself and it’s been a beneficial experience. A lot of the bad perceptions of relationships have stuck with me but I’m trying to not mould my relationship with Igor on what has happened to me in the past. This is something that I’m privately trying to work through with myself and I hope that I can become a woman who believes she is deserving.
* * *
Do I love him? It can’t be. At least not so soon. I have a desire to be close to him. To be in his arms, for our bodies to collide, lips locked, arms entangled, breaths racing. But that can’t be love. I’d sooner say it’s lust than love. My heart feels heavy. No. It’s not love. At least not yet, but maybe later. But please not now.
I have an irrepressible desire to not have my heart broken. This is not the time.