When Time Makes You Stay
-Brandelyn N. Castine

For a lot of women, we are told that it is better to be in a relationship than to be single. So we pair up, dive into relationships and dig into them with everything we have because the alternative is being single. And single is a bad word. After a few months or a few years, we begin to force ourselves to swallow the complaints and ignore concerns because we have a man, who loves us and that is all that is important. Soon we begin to sacrifice our dreams and goals to help cultivate theirs, because it is easier to swallow our own pride than it is to deal with the real issues at hand. him being unhappy. And it seems like every time we think its time to throw in the towel, we hear from one of our single girlfriends who sooths our battered souls with stories of how tired she is of being single. We get off the phone and pause and reflect and realize that we have it so much easier than our friends. So why risk the trials and tribulations of the dating scene even if our current situation isn’t the greatest. than having to go back to being single. So we we swallow our pride, square our shoulders and go right back into bending over backwards to make the relationship work.  Or maybe that’s just my story.           

After spending 9 years being affected by what I thought was the love of my life, I began to wonder if being with him being in a relationship was worth the sacrifice.  We had a decent relationship. We loved each other and things were going all right, but the truth was that our relationship was stagnant. It was not moving or progressing because we as individuals were not moving or progressing. While yes, technically I had a man who loved me and always knew the perfect things to say to get me to stay and no, there was no other man I had met who made me feel the way he did, the truth of the matter was that I  wasn’t happy. I had grown so comfortable in being comfortable that I lost myself without even knowing it. We had all of these years invested and I could not wrap my mind around the thought of being with anyone else. But the time came when I had to present myself with an ultimatum. Tired of making excuses and using the relationship as my excuse for not working on the things I wanted to do, I knew that I had one of two choices. I could stay in this relationship for the sake of being comfortable and safe, or I could finally let it go and rediscover who I was. Eventually, after many tears and questions and going back and forth, I chose me.

The worst thing a woman can do to herself is to choose everything else over her well being. Being in a relationship for the sake of being in a relationship is not fair to you or your partner. This type of thinking leads to all kinds of drama that usually leaves you as the victim. As we get older, we grow and change and stretch into whom we are supposed to become, and unfortunately, that growth often causes us to start re-evaluating relationships. The scariest thing to do is start over. But sometimes for our own sanity and our own wellbeing, that is the only thing we can do. If you wake up in the morning and question not only what your purpose in life is, but what that man’s purpose in your life is, then it is really time to sit down and start asking yourself some hard questions. Being comfortable does not equal happiness. So maybe it is time to start asking what’s more important. end

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