Sometimes opposites are just opposite

We’ve always heard the saying, opposites attract. I’m not saying that occasionally they don’t, what I am saying is sometimes, opposites are just opposite. In my younger years I was a searcher. A searcher of all things that resembled a soulmate. I obviously had no idea who I was, or what I was looking for, but that didn’t stop me. I remember a few fondly, and a few not so much. Looking back I realize no matter which category they were in, it was rarely to any fault of their own. The prince charming dream that gets instilled into our young girls is bullshit, absolute bullshit. I am trying like hell to raise my girls with a fierceness that doesn’t need saving, but more taming. Loving and taking care of themselves first. The people pleasing tendencies need to stop with me. So often I wish I could go back in time, I’d handle situations so differently.

I remember before I met my husband I was dating a man who was quite a bit older. 18 years older to be exact. I was a young single mom and he was an established divorced father of 3. Our first date he handed me a hundred dollar bill and told me to go buy groceries for a recipe, and he would come over and cook for me. That is something I had never experienced before. As time went on he became extremely jealous and degrading. All of the male friendships that I had were affected, and I was slowly being isolated from my friends. They didn’t want to hang out with us because it was awkward for them. I was trying to be two different people. A young fun loving 20 year old, yet playing house with someone that would say terrible things to me, but then buy me wonderful things as his way of apologizing. In hindsight he was extremely insecure, and I was naive. Thank goodness it lasted only about a year. In this case opposites are just opposite. Perhaps I was too much for him. I mean I was a dime piece back then. All joking aside, it wasn’t meant to be anything more than a learning experience. Never regret anything that taught you something.

I had a good conversation with a male friend of mine the other day. He was having some girl trouble and who better to ask than your least stable, yet honest, female friend. We talked about the situation he was in and how to protect himself from being in a rerun of the last season. Chuck was sitting next to me when we were having the conversation, nodding his head in agreement to my free advice. Once I got off the phone Chuck and I continued the conversation and it was he who said, “babe, sometimes opposites are just opposite.” Think about that a second, he is absolutely right. It’s a sentence that requires no further explanation. If you think back to a failed relationship or even friendship sometimes there is no specific reason it ended. Maybe you’ve spent way to much time trying to figure out why, and what you could have done differently when the answer is so simple. Sometimes opposites are just opposite. Don’t beat yourself up. Dust yourself off and do you.