Optimism in Relationships

Today I saw this post that read "Not to spoil the ending, but everything is going to be okay."And it made me smile. There aren't many posts that make me feel anything, but this one.. this was the one I needed to see today.

I've always been an optimistic person. Most people love it, and some believe that it's an unrealistic way to live. Because how could I possibly know that things are going to get better? Especially when it feels like things have continuously spiraled out of control, and are continuously getting worse. It's understandable why peoples optimistic beliefs run out. But what I try to tell those people is that if you are putting in the work to get where you want to go, things will not always be this bad. I've heard someone say "if you lose enough, it changes you." And I believe that it's up to you how you allow it to change you.

I have taken losses year after year, and what has kept me going through it all have been the small things in between those losses. For example, I lost my job right before my doctor put me on bedrest during my first pregnancy. In the moment I was angry, I was lost, and I was depressed, but a few months after I had my son, I saw an article about a woman with the same condition that I have and she had actually lost her child from it. All I could think about was the fact that I needed to take that loss to gain my son. The loss of my job had also followed by a spiral of losses after that, but each time, something positive was waiting for me right after. Now, here I am again pregnant with PTSD because I might endure the same situation as before, but at least I am more prepared this time around.

One person who I have had to spend years explaining my optimism to is my husband. We are total opposites when it comes to wondering what the future may hold. He spent years trying to share my optimism, but the losses he had taken had changed him in a different way. We tend to share these deep discussions, and one that stands out to me is why it is harder for a man to be optimistic in a relationship. It is truly important to have these conversations with your significant other, because you never actually know how deeply their losses have changed them just like how your own have changed you.

I don't believe that a man and a woman could ever fully understand what the other endures during the losses that they share together. Many men fall silent during their struggles because of the standard that they are expected to live up to. But in this specific journal, I will only speak for my husband because not every man carries the same load. Luckily, I have gotten to see first hand what my own husband has had to endure so that I can better appreciate and understand when he has a moment of weakness. I now also understand that the light at the end of my tunnel is not always where his tunnel ends.

From the start of our relationship, I have taken losses, which have second-handedly affected him as well. Losing my mother caused him to stay with me while I healed. Not knowing at the time, he had passed up an offer for a better opportunity at a better school so that he could be there for me. He took on the responsibility of finding us an apartment so that I could get rid of my dorm room and save money, while also taking on a job to maintain the bills. I had cars all through college, in which he'd helped me maintain the upkeep. I'm not saying I accepted all of these things while offering nothing in return. Just simply stating where it all began.

Straight out of the gate, his instincts told him to provide for his woman, and to make sure that her needs were met. And that's just what he has done. All in the same breath, I was doing my part as well, I just was not paying close attention to what he had been sacrificing in the midst of it all. It's not like he would tell me when things were bad until after they were handled. He has always made it his duty for me to not know when we were in a tough spot so that I could remain the optimistic happy person that I was. It makes sense now that we have had this discussion years later, why he would get so upset when I'd say "things are going to work out, we'll be fine." It's because he was usually the reason why those things were working out. It wasn't as if I was saying to just sit back and let it ride, but I was simply stating that things would not be bad forever, so there was no need for being stressed all day every day. The thing is, he was usually always stressed, and I didn't really know why until recently.

I'll be honest when I say that he kind of spoiled me in a way where he made sure that I only saw half the struggle. I know people are so quick to say "thats what a man is supposed to do", but at the age of 21 he should've been living a care free college life. Instead we were playing husband and wife, and he was husbanding the hell out of his role. Anyways, this has carried on up to now, where I am able to see and understand what he has been through, and why his optimism has run out. He's tired, he feels defeated, and he knows that he is the optimism that has kept us going. My little engine that could is finally wondering how much further he can.

After getting pregnant and losing my job, my husband had to work longer hours and even pick up a second job to make sure our ends were met. And after all of those years of stressing about it, he had learned to do it with a smile on his face. He knew that during my time of despair, I needed that from him, and he had damn sure delivered. Everyone would always joke and tell him that he looks tired and stressed, but as long as I was glowing, he didn't care. Me on the other hand, didn't feel like I was glowing, because during the whole time of him going through his struggles, I was going through my own side of it. But I guess from the outside looking in, we looked like we were doing just fine.

The thing about it is, even though I know he hates when I say that things will be fine, because he knows what he has to do to make that the reality, is that we balance each other out. While my husband is doing all he can to make sure that we reach our goals, he needs me to remind him of what those goals are. He needs me to walk him off the ledge when he feels defeated. He needs to see that his hard work is paying off because in the moment he does not see how it's paying off. At times he feels like we are just surviving and that God is playing yo-yo with our future plans, I have to explain to him how these things are going to work out for us in the future. In the end, we are both always right. Yes, he had to put in the hard work for us to get there, but he needed to hear that getting there would be worth it. That all of this is for something while he feels it's for nothing. That a rainbow always reveals itself after a storm.

I won't get into my side of things today, but I will say that my husband needs my optimism whether he sees it right now or not. But I definitely make sure that I remind him that his efforts are seen and appreciated because he is part of the reason I am able to be the optimistic ray of light that people in my life need. Even if I am feeling at my lowest, I am always able to tell the next person that things will get better for them. Even if things are feeling impossible for my family and I, I am able to cry about it and pick myself back up and keep working toward that happy ending. That I am able to spoil other peoples stories by telling them that they too have a happy ending on the way.