When We Chose to Breakup Instead of Make Up

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If you’ve been in a relationship of any length you know that there comes a point where one or both of you have to make a choice: should we break up or stay together? In some cases an event might spark a breakup, the main examples being cheating, lying, or stealing but sometimes it is not that cut and dry, especially if you’ve invested time and love. No matter what the factors, at the end of the day whether you choose to break up or stay together the fact is that it is a choice. We reflected on relationships when we chose to break it off even though an event didn’t spark the decision. We chose to end the relationships for the betterment of ourselves and our then partners. While discussing this post we found that while the context was different, the names, the places, the factors, etc, the reasons were very similar and we’ll share below our experiences…

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Sass: The relationship that comes to mind is one that involves (*spoiler alert*) my first proposal. I was in college dating a guy who was a out of college and in the military. Very soon into our relationship he was stationed to another city which put a lot of pressure on us early on. We made trips to see each other when possible and I had the most emotional experiences each time I had to leave him. At the end of one weekend together in the airport parking lot, I was sobbing until he hits me with, “Baby, I love you. Will you marry me?” The crying stopped, better yet, it came to a screeching halt. “I love you very much but I can’t answer that right now,” I finally said. His face dropped and my heart broke.

From then on we were never the same, as you can imagine. He lashed out at me repeatedly over the next few weeks and we fought a lot. Looking back I believe he was just too hurt to know what to do so instead of talking it out, we fought it out. I can clearly remember the moment when I made the decision to breakup. By about the tenth or eleventh listen of Beyonce’s “If I Were A Boy”, I made the decision to strip my room clean of anything that reminded me of him and made the call.

I learned a lot from this relationship but the biggest take away for me was if you want to ask a grown up question then be grown up enough to handle any answer. I could have chosen to stick it out, fight through it, and make it work but I chose not to. I chose to recognize that ultimately this person was not right for me and that to continue to endure the negativity would be harmful to both of us. So in breaking if off with him, I broke both of our hearts but I can say that I knew even then it was the right decision.

Sweetness: Choosing to break up or stay together seems pretty black and white but I’m sure everyone can agree that it’s definitely a gray area, an area of uncertainty. I have been in a relationship where I was head over heels in love and the guy I was with … well idk if he entirely felt the same but his dreams were different than mine. Baseball was his dream and he joined the minor leagues after he graduated college and continued to chase that dream. I was still in school and though I should have been enjoying my final year, all I wanted was to be with him! The distance, time zone differences, and always being in a different place was always working against us. We could rarely figure out a time to see one another and if we did, one of us was traveling a far distance just to try and make it work.

Being so young, it was just not sustainable or realistic. We both needed to choose if we were going to make this work or not and being that we are no longer together, I think you can guess what we chose. It doesn’t mean it was easy and that there weren’t any tears or hurt feelings. It was just simply the situation that ultimately lead us to realize this was not something we could both continue pursuing.

So, as you can see our stories are different but share underlying themes and the biggest one being choice. We made choices in these relationships based on the circumstances, age, time and place, and future goals. In reading our stories we are a bit envious of our younger, more fearless selves. As hard as those choices were to make in the moment, looking back it seems so easy and clear. We are going to take our younger, more fearless selves into our next tough choice and know that in 10 more years from now we’ll see the choice as easy and clear!

Xo Sass and Sweetness

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How Meeting “The One” Changes Your Life

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So we’ve gone through all the breakups, eaten all the pizza, kissed all the frogs, and finally found the one. Now what? Some of us will make the decision to marry this person and that’s what we’re here to talk about today….marriage and all that comes with it!

SoOo, hey there, Sass here! As of today I have been with my husband for 6 years and we are 21 months into marriage. That being said, if you are a gazillion years into marriage, or simply in it longer than we are, take everything below with a grain of salt as I am sure I will read this years from now and laugh at myself…

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When You Know, You Know
When you ask most people, “So how did you know he/she was the one?” We are often met by the same response, “Ah well, when you know, you know.” I definitely subscribe to gut feelings and I too experienced this sense of cosmic “knowing” about my husband. However, I could also analyze our relationship and know that we aligned. Relationships do not often fail because of differing religious viewpoints, differing wants on children, smoking, or any of the “big ticket items,” as I call them, because when people differ on these aspects of life most often the relationship never begins in the first place. In my experience, relationships fail because of differing viewpoints on lifestyle, money, and affection. When two people generally share the same hopes, dreams, and goals for how you want life to be things tend to work out. For example, it could be difficult for a relationship to thrive when one person loves to travel and the other couldn’t care less, when one person wants to be social all the time and the other is a constant homebody, when you have a morning versus a night person, a clean versus messy person, someone who craves physically affection and a partner who isn’t into it, or when you have differing opinions on how to spend money. I truly believe that the “smaller ticket items” build up over time and eventually someone (or both people) explode.

That being said, my husband is messy and I am neat, he is very social and I am more of a homebody BUT I think what people mean by “when you know, you know,” is that you experience these differences in every relationship but you know it’s “the one” because this person makes compromises for you. And equally important, you see that you are willing and happy to compromise for him/her.

My husband and I also share the same values and are on the same page about our big life picture. We both appreciate and love to travel, we both want family to be a big part of our lives, and we both understand that while we like nice things, buying our first home is the priority and limit our spending accordingly. We are not going to get in arguments about credit card charges, public versus private school for our daughter, or seeing family on holidays, as examples.

So, yes, I knew I was in love with him, physically attracted to him, and enjoyed my time with him but when it came to deciding whether or not to marry him, I knew that the vision of what I wanted my life to look like very closely aligned to his vision of his life. This was a big indication to me that we could make this darn thing work for the long haul.

The Big Day
My husband and I have huge families and lots of friends so the decision to do a destination wedding came pretty easily to us. We needed a way to simplify our big day and keep it “small” without insulting a large part of our extended circles. In a perfect world would we have had everyone there, of course, but we simply couldn’t afford it. And I’ll be very honest with you, growing up in New Jersey and having attended some of the most beautiful and extravagant weddings I knew that even if we took the 80 people that we had in Mexico to a venue in NJ, we would not have afforded the type of wedding that I pictured in my head in my teens and early 20s. I needed to make our wedding so different from the $100,000-500,000 weddings that I’d seen in my younger years in order to not feel like my wedding wasn’t as nice or as glam or as beautiful.

So, we took our wedding to Mexico and let the beach be our backdrop and the party and vacation with our friends and family take the place of the over the top centerpieces, the big band, and the king crab leg cocktail hour. It’s not that I didn’t want these things, and I am not mocking those that have this type of wedding, I just knew we wouldn’t have been able to do it to the level that I would have wanted so we made it completely different. Ultimately the entire party was dancing before the salads were served and we had an incredible time. So 21 months later, I’m not bothered by the simple white flower centerpieces and I can’t remember what I ate so there’s that. It’s true what they say though, it is a blur so try to enjoy it in the moment as much as possible!

Love and Marriage
I’m finding it difficult to adequately put into words the wonderful aspects of marriage other than to say that I know I have a partner for life. This is such a secure, wonderful feeling but rather than type out a bunch of lovey dovey stuff about my marriage and my love for my husband I’m going to let two songs do the talking:

“Home” by Phillip Phillips (our wedding song):
Hold on, to me as we go, as we roll down this unfamiliar road. And although this wave is stringing us along, just know you’re not alone, ’cause I’m going to make this place your home.

“Feel the Tide” by Mumford and Sons (one of “our songs”):
It’s you and I now, we can be alright, just hold onto what we know is true. You and I now, though it’s cold inside, feel the tide turning…

I think you get the picture: we’re in this together, I love him more than I can describe, and we always have each other’s backs. Done and done.

The Challenges
Welp, there isn’t enough time or space to go through the challenges of marriage but I’ll share some of the most relevant ones to me right now. My husband feels loved through food and while it seems like an easy enough thing to make happen, sometimes getting dinner on the table feels like running a marathon. While on my own I could eat hummus for dinner, in order to keep my marriage happy and healthy, I generally need to get dinner on the table even when it means sacrificing other errands, chores, or a workout class for me. It’s just one of those things, ya know?

Secondly, having a baby has presented all sorts of new challenges and I think the biggest one is that as a first time mom, I have experienced so many changes in the last 18 months (including pregnancy and now my daughter is 9 months), that my husband literally cannot relate to. He can be and is supportive of me but there’s no biological way for him to truly understand how I feel mentally, emotionally, and physically and that.is.hard. He is my go-to guy for everything and in this instance, we have had to accept that there are aspects of my life now that I sometimes need to turn to someone other than him to work through, which has been an adjustment.

I can continue with specifics but overall, it comes down to making choices, decisions, and compromises for another person even when you don’t want to. It is more challenging than I first realized to balance standing my ground with knowing that at the end of the day being right takes down the other person, the person I love most in the world. Years ago my husband and I were arguing about something, I can’t remember what, and my mom said to me, “Christie, I know. I get it. But in being right and ‘winning’ this argument means that he, your person, loses. And as much as you believe and know you’re right, is it worth him losing?” That is something I try to keep in mind when we have disagreements because disagreements are always going to be there but it’s how we work through them that make or break us. We are not perfect but I have one of those marriages where even when we argue I always know that “we’re fine.” If you have this, you know what I mean. Having the “we’re always fine” thing is our confidence in our foundation and I’m just not sure what I’d do without it.

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Change
So, we think it’s pretty obvious how your life changes when you get married. You go from doing what you want, when you want, to making decisions together, spending money together, bringing babies into the world together. Everything is suddenly about the togetherness! But not only does your life change when you get married but your marriage changes as your life changes. So.much.change. Sass is going through this now with her husband and learning how the marriage changes with having a kid. She is also learning what it means to have “married couple friends,” and how to balance the wild and crazy single nights out with Sweetness! But when it comes down to it, all of the change and all of the challenges are worth it for the marriage, for your friends, for your family, and for us as individuals!

So tell us what marriage means to you! What’s the secret sauce to making your marriage work? What is most challenging for you right now? Or what are you most looking forward to in marriage? Are you choosing not to get married? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment here or on our Instagram!

Xo Sass and Sweetness

 

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Dealing with Changes After a Breakup

Processed with VSCO with c3 presetAh breakups. The hardest part about a breakup is… well… everything. Whether it is for better or worse, breaking up and dealing with the after effects is definitely not easy, regardless of the situation. Though breakups are often thought of as negative, we do want to discuss how it can have a positive impact on you, even if you don’t see it right away. So we are sharing how the changes associated with a variety of different breakups can teach you lessons and change your life in a good way!

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So let’s look at this from a few different perspectives. Let’s say in the first scenario, you were just not that into the guy. You may be dating him for companionship or because it is “easy” or “safe” but you don’t see the long term with this person. Sooo you end it and think things will be all honky dory… and they’re not. You may feel sad because you are now alone, however you may also feel guilty that you hurt someone else’s feelings. Either way these are totally normal feelings, however in this situation you have to be a little selfish. If you weren’t truly happy with this person then it was the right decision to end things! You are the one that needs to make the appropriate changes to get what you want out of life. The feelings of loneliness will only be temporary and the guy you broke up with is a big boy and will move on… at some point. So in this situation it is important to tear off the bandaid and don’t settle!

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Next scenario… someone that you were really into broke up with you. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it sucks. It is okay to cry, mourn, deal with the pain. After the breakup happens, you are going to be reminded of this person all.the.time. You are going to compare other guys to him all.the.time. Do we want to lie and say oh it will be fine and easy?! Hell no! It is going to be straight up plain hard. But guess what?? There was a reason this happened. This was not meant to be and you will find out why one day, even if it’s in a few days, a year, or 10 years from now. And maybe you even know the reason why but you are trying to deny it in your head. Either way, some days will be hard, however when you keep busy and surround yourself with the ones that truly love and care about you, you will see that is how you should be treated all the time. The guy that you end up marrying will worship you and will want to be with you no matter what. So though this change is going to suck, trust us there’s plenty of benefits in the long run!

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The last scenario is probably the hardest. You are in a relationship that is not healthy and regardless of who makes the break, it won’t be an easy one. The feelings and changes you experience will go far beyond heartbreak. You may experience a loss in confidence or motivation. You may not feel like yourself and be hidden in your shell. You might not know how to live life without this person anymore, and we don’t mean in a good way. If you were in a relationship with someone that was controlling, jealous, or even abusive, there are unfortunately going to be a lot of after effects. Moving on from a relationship like this is tough and finding yourself again is even tougher. One of the best recommendations we can make is to start doing the things YOU enjoy. Do what made YOU happy before this relationship started or before it turned south. You will start to realize that you turned into a person that wasn’t you and you need to make sure you take care of yourself first! Also talking to someone is extremely helpful whether it be a professional or even just a friend! Making these small changes to get back to where you used to be are extremely important! You will find that you’ll become a much happier, healthier, and better version of yourself not being in an unhealthy relationship anymore.

We hope that you find some of these suggestions and reasons insightful! Whether it applies to you or someone you might know, it is most important to have support during a break up… but there’s always pizza too! So hold your heads up pretty ladies and start making small changes day by day – because you deserve to be treated like a queen!!

Xo Sass and Sweetness

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How Relationship Changes Affect your Life

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Processed with VSCO with c3 presetEnding and starting new relationships comes with a large amount of changes. Whether they are positive or negative changes, it’s crazy how others impact your life in so many ways. We have both experienced a lot of changes recently, especially in our romantic relationships and friendships. Some of the changes have been very good, others not so much. We are sharing how we are adapting and to let you know you are not alone!

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Sass:

Hola, Sass here! Change has become my middle name these past few years. After going to college in Washington, DC I decided to stay there for “a little while” until I could figure out what I wanted to do with my life. In that time, I met my now husband and “a little while” turned into 5 more years. After we got engaged in 2015, a short while later we relocated to Boston, MA. The year we spent in Boston was one of our best years yet! We didn’t know many people and had no family around so we spent a lot of quality time together. In the months leading up to our wedding, it was wonderful to have this alone time together and to learn that even when it’s just the two of us around we are very happy!

We got married in January 2017 and by April I was pregnant! Wah! So, we were then faced with a decision: do we stay in Boston where we’ve been very happy and jobs are great or do we move closer to family in time for the baby to arrive? Welp, you guessed it, we moved to NJ a year ago September to prepare for the baby. In moving to NJ, since we did it rather quickly, we moved in with my parents. It was enough being pregnant and moving, let alone pregnant, moving, and settling into a new house of our own so we decided to wait a bit. And then finally by January our baby girl was born and she is now 9 months.

So, just a couple of C-H-A-N-G-E-S recently, huh? In the last 3 years I have gone from single to engaged, from living in Washington, DC, Boston, MA, and now New Jersey. Engaged to married. Married and living in the perfect apartment in a little bubble with my husband to living with my parents and from a carefree 20-something to a nearly 30 year old with a baby! Oh and I almost forgot to mention that I went from a corporate job that I held for 5 years to now working from home. This is certainly the glossed over version but the dirty details of all of these changes are coming in the following posts this month. I’ll be sharing how all of these changes make me feel, how they affect my friendships and other relationships, and so much more.

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Sweetness:

Hey everyone, it’s Sweetness! One of the biggest changes I went through a little over a year ago was when my relationship with my fiance ended. It was (and sometimes still is) one of the hardest times in my life. I was so used to basically being his wife, living and sleeping with him, even working together with him. We had been together for 5 years and had been through sooo much together that it was tough to just wake up and not have this person in my life anymore.

He was my best friend, the person I turned to, the person that made me laugh. However, we had experienced a lot of trauma through our relationship and I had moved across the country to California to be with him. Being in a new state, with no friends or family of my own was very tough and because we didn’t always get along, it made everything so much more difficult. I was torn between wanting to make our relationship work, however also missed my family and friends back in New Jersey.

When I moved back to NJ, I was experiencing all of my own changes, however my friends were also going through changes, like marriage and babies! I was adapting to my new life, new job, and experiencing a different dynamic between me and my friends. They weren’t as “available” anymore and I often felt alone, like I was the only person going through this. These changes greatly impacted me emotionally and physically and I often felt it was tough to get by.

Now things have started to fall into place, but I would be lying if I said I don’t question if the decision I made was the right one. It’s funny how a negative change can also have a positive outcome. Have I fully seen the positive outcome yet? I don’t think so, however I have felt more like myself again and still hold on to the hope that things will turn out to be okay! As our “changes” blog posts continue, I will continue to share how I have been affected in a negative and positive way and hope that someone else out there that may be going through something similar doesn’t feel alone and can relate!

Friends, stay tuned this month! We’ll be sharing the details of the many changes we have both experienced over the last several years and what these changes mean for our futures! Make sure to let us know what you’re going through; it’s always nice to know there are women out there going through the same things!

Xo Sass and Sweetness

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Work Friends: Did We Just Become Best Friends?!

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How could we forget about work friends?! They are the ones that get you through the 9-5, the ones that you can roll your eyes at when your boss pisses you off, and the only ones that truly understand how freakin’ annoying Sue is over in Accounting (sorry Sue). We believe that work friends come in all different varieties and no matter how you look at it, they are definitely needed!

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Creating A Bond

Work is a huge part of our lives and whether you love or hate what you do, if you’re human, you have moments when you just have to vent about a client, a project, or co-worker (cough Sue cough). In our experience, there is nothing quite like the bond of people at work that have a shared negative experience, a shared pet peeve, or a common enemy. This may not be our proudest or most positive revelation but it’s certainly an honest one. You might at first tip toe around each other, sending out feelers for how that person feels and as soon as the discovery is made that you’re on the same page….LOOK OUT! The floodgates are open! Any opportunity you have to commiserate over the issue, the project, or mostly like the person, you take it and while it kinda feels bad, doesn’t it also feel really good?! This person becomes irreplaceable because unlike venting to your sigo or friend, you don’t have to explain the who, what, and where’s of the story before getting to the annoying part:

You: So, we have this deadline every Monday for these reports that are tedious but not that hard…
Your Sigo/Friend: What are the reports about?
You: [Explaining this couldn’t be more irrelevant to the story but ok…] Well, they are a collection of our numbers from last week and a projection of our numbers for the coming week and…
Your Sigo/Friend: Oh nice and who do you send them to?
You: [Mentally eye-rolling] PEOPLE! What’s important is that so-and-so and I came in super early to complete them, we did them perfectly and then Sue from accounting looked at them, who according to her job title should be much better at these reports than we are, changed a bunch of stuff and then had us send them in with wrong info. Then the higher-ups responded back with a nasty email about why they were wrong and Sue let us take the fall.”
Your Sigo/Friend: Why should Sue be better at the reports than you are?
You: [Takes bottle of wine to the face] THAT IS SO NOT THE POINT!

Meanwhile with your work bestie, literally all you have to do is look at each other and he or she knows all of that and more about the situation, how it makes you feel, and why. This is a person that you simply can’t live without…..and definitely a person you need to drink with, do yoga with, and basically do anything to relieve yourselves of this stress!

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All of that rant being said, creating a bond doesn’t always have to be a bond against the worst boss ever, against Sue, or against the 40 deadlines you have, it can also be formed out of respect. Respect at work is major because you want to know that the people around you are working as hard as you are, right? Have you ever worked on a team that either in your mind, or said out loud, was the DREAM TEAM? We have! The dream team is a well-oiled machine, no drama, get sh!t done, and gets it done early kinda team. Each person has his or her strengths that compliments the strengths of the other members. This is the crew that you want to go to happy hour with, the crew you want at your wedding, the crew that makes working with anyone else ever again seem totally stupid.

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When the Bond Goes Too Far?

The bonds we create at work can be tricky when the “work husband” jokes feel like there’s some truth to them. At work there is a bit more freedom in making flirty remarks or conversation because there’s less pressure and there’s a guarantee that you are seeing this person pretty much every day. While on paper, and according to HR, that would deter people from pursuing romantic gestures, it creates an environment where the pressure is removed. There is no pressure to come up with the most witty pick up line. There’s no pressure to ask for someone’s number and there isn’t an assumption that sex is on the table simply because you enjoy each other’s company the way there might be when you meet someone on a Saturday night at a bar. Removing this pressure allows coworkers to get to know each other at a more realistic pace and on a day-in and day-out basis, which is why so many couples meet at work.

Then again, we’ve been faced with situations where you might mistake a romantic situation for simply a friendship. Since you are at work, you are primarily just being yourself. So your “work husband” is getting to know you in so many different ways, not just how he would on a date. They see the good side, the pissed off side, and the “I’m f*ing exhausted” side on a pretty regular basis. With that level of comfort and no pressure, you may let your guard down so much so that the friendship gets mistaken as something more than that. You are essentially bi-passing all of the small talk and silly get to know you questions and cutting right to the chase of knowing this person inside and out, “Hmm… we get along really well, this person knows a lot about me… so what does that mean?” This is the tricky part because it might cross lines that it shouldn’t, or even worse one person might start to catch feelings that the other person isn’t feeling. However you want to keep the same friendship and bond going. So just because you are close, it doesn’t mean that you have to date, it’s okay to just have a really great friendship!

So whatever your work friends are to you, we hope that you either have someone to roll your eyes with about Sue in Accounting, have someone to grab drinks with after work, or hey maybe you met your sigo….or someone who thought they should be your sigo but turned out it really wasn’t meant to be and you’re still the best of friends!

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