Spent the last two weekends
roaming around Poland. Over the first weekend of February I ventured
south to meet my would-be in-laws, a week ago into Mazury, to take
delight in wintery landscape of the lakes area in the
low season. For technical reasons, I will catch up with the photo
coverage somewhat later, at best in a week
J
The common denominator of the
last weeks were ups and downs of living under one roof with my better
half. Both of us had never had a chance to get accustomed to cohabit
with a life companion under one roof, therefore
such major change has been a sort of stressful for both of us. Living
together is mainly about fighting some of one’s habits and accepting
some of your partner’s habits, where both sides should find some areas
where they decide to give in and others where
they insist to hold on to what they are used to.
For many couples a common
dwelling is not just a turning point that marks moving a level up, but
also the end of so-called bed of roses. This regularity pertains mainly
to couples whose dating prior to living together
confined to going out, spending time together, but without sharing
down-to-earth duties. This is unfortunately what daily life is all about
and what has brought to an end the carefree periods of my friends’
relationships (they all hark back to times before
finding themselves with their life companions under one roof). I need
to confess the process of moving and early days in “our = rented” flat
have been quite smooth and painless. We both displayed a lot of patience
towards each other and held back our emotions
for several occasions. The first days went without a major spat,
however a few more serious, frank talks turned out to be essential to
sort some things out and clear the atmosphere.
I cannot say I am disillusioned,
but I am slowly coming to terms with abandoning my dreams of an ideal
relationship. Every human, inevitably, has drawbacks, and while spending
lots of time with somebody you care for,
clashes are inexorable as well. It only takes good manners and lots of
composure not to lose one’s temper and to stand up to what you believe,
balancing this with a proper dose of respect to your partner and their
autonomy. Whenever a crisis hits me, I recall
my better half has accepted my several shortcomings and puts up with me
which is not easy; this gives me more strength and patience to cope
with her idiosyncrasies.
For the time being the biggest
challenge are eating habits. My better half is a vegetarian, not a
hard-line one, meaning she does not accuse everyone around eating meat
of contributing to killing what once has been alive,
but as she declares, she had never ever had a single gram of meat (nor
fish) in her mouth, while I, in order not to stay hungry, need regular
intake of nutrients with animal proteins and I am unwilling to give up
on it. For a while it is not a big concern
(though cooking a lunch we would both eat is impossible, which makes me
kind of sad, in the light of my new resolution to learn to cook after
entering this new stage), yet many people have advised me to think it
over how it all would look when she gets pregnant
and children are born. Coercing would not work (or would rather have
the opposite effect), convincing somebody who is very sensitive to any
conversation on the topic of their eating habits (after hearing
regularly she was weird on account of refusing to eat
meat at all) could also work like a red rag to a bull. I can only tell
myself nutrition habits and not a fundamental part of relationship and
definitely should not become a deciding factor when choosing a life
companion (which oddly enough is not as obvious,
after I met many people who would declare they would not accept a
partner who does not eat meat “as normal humans do”). By the way it gets
to the worst, while you are influenced by opinions expressed by several
people around to such extent that you fail to
distinguish whether your view is your own one of shaped by influencers
who whisper beliefs into your ears.
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