Fighting

I read something a week or so ago that said that some couples are too happy.  I wish I could remember where I read it so that I could link it up here.  Basically, the article said that couples who do not fight are destined to fail.  This is because they are avoiding confrontation and it's really unhealthy.  So, sooner or later, everything is going to blow up and the relationship will be over.

And, if you're not avoiding confrontation, the reason you don't fight is because your relationship is just boring.  And, eventually you're going to get tired of all the boredom and bail.  

The article said that optimally, you and your partner should fight about every other month.  This is what they considered a healthy amount of fighting.  

I have to disagree.  Philip and I have had one fight in the entire time that we have been together.  That was in December of 2009 after we'd been together for about 6 and a half months.  I was in Indiana spending New Years Eve with my family.  Philip was in North Carolina.  He was really sick with the flu.  He was really irritable and started a fight for no real reason other than he wanted me to be in North Carolina taking care of him.  The fight lasted all of about twenty-minutes (over the phone).  And then we made up and everything has been peachy-keen ever since.

I don't see anything wrong with this.  I'm not bored with Philip and he's not bored with me.  I think it's ridiculous to think that if we aren't fighting, then we will get bored with each other.  Because it's not like we have any other options for keeping our relationship interesting other than fighting.  GAH!  

Philip and I have a ton in common.  So, there isn't a whole lot to fight about.  I suppose we could fight over his work schedule.  He works nights and I work days.  So, if I were a normal person, I would see him for about 10 minutes a day Monday through Thursday.  

Well, I'm not normal.  Instead of fighting about it, I just switched my sleeping schedule so that I nap when I get home from work (about 4:30ish) and then I'm up for a few hours before Philip gets home. Then I spend a few hours with Philip before he goes to sleep.  I sleep for another hour or two and get up to get ready for work.  

I am generally a pretty positive person.  I may vent about something that is bothering me, but then I find a solution rather than dwelling on the negative.  Sure, the sleep schedule isn't ideal, but it's working great for us.  :)

I don't really see the purpose of fighting.  If I have a problem, I express it to Philip.  If Philip has a problem, he expresses it to me.  We figure out a solution and go from there.  Philip and I think alike, so we can see where each other is coming from.  Also, neither of us is hot-headed.  We can both address problems without blowing up about them.  

So, what is there that we should fight about that would make our relationship healthier?  I can't see anything.  I think the article was just ridiculous.  Fighting once every other month is just too much.  

Life... and love.

I will be in Gatlinburg for the weekend. A long weekend. A FOUR DAY WEEKEND. Oh my goodness... I can't even express how excited I am about this weekend. My parents and my sister are coming down and we're going to go hiking, shopping, and white-water rafting. And Philip is coming with me. It doesn't get much better! :)

I found someone to take my job. I've been training her for just over a week now. It's going really well. I think she'll fit well... for at least a while. She can keep the guys in line... I hope. And she has no attachments to the family, so she shouldn't be torn in a million different directions. Also, she has lots of administrative experience and is used to dealing with bulls**t and having to babysit her bosses.

I have the most wonderful boyfriend in the world. Sometimes I think about Philip and wonder how I ever stayed with any other boyfriend. I mean, Philip is wonderful to me. He tells me that he only treats me the way that I deserve to be treated. Why did I put up with any less?? lol

The dogs. Always so much drama. Ugh. Hopefully I can figure out something to do with them. I don't want to find them new homes because they are MY babies. But, Joe makes things difficult a lot of the time.

Joe. I swear, things go up and down more than a rollercoaster. Some days I think he hates me and then the next day, things are peachy-keen and he wants to be friends. I hope that things will be different when I'm not working with him anymore. Then we will either have to be real friends or just completely go our separate ways.

Most of the time now, I wonder why we were together for so long. I don't mean that in a mean way. I just mean that now, I can't figure out what I saw in him. We are so VERY different. He drives me crazy for the most part. I still care for him, but sometimes I sit down and think about everything we went through and wonder how we made it as long as we did. The heart is a scary thing. I stayed with Joe through a lot of crappiness and unhappiness and gave everything I had to try to make the relationship work. But, I don't honestly know why. The only thing I can come up with is love. I loved Joe with every fiber of my being. But why were we in love? What made us fall in love? What made us stay in love? It wasn't what we had in common... we actually had/have very little in common. We mostly just had a mutual love for each other in common.

I used to think that was fine. I thought every relationship would require a lot of sacrifice and that being different made things interesting. What I didn't realize is that I was giving FAR too much of myself to the relationship and not getting nearly enough out of it. I'm a sucker for the underdog. Stray puppies, geeky teenagers, losing teams, or anything else that needs help... I get sucked in. I can't look away. I have to give what I can to help. That goes for relationships, too, apparently.

I have recently realized that my previous two boyfriends were sucking the life out of me. I gave everything to the relationships and had nothing left for myself. It's not a problem for me to be giving freely to a relationship but it's unhealthy if the partner is not reciprocating. It royally sucks to be taken for granted.

I think it's probably never going to sink in for Michael, but I think that Joe sees what went wrong with our relationship and what he needs to do differently to make a relationship work. And, I learned things from both of those relationships. It's just taking a while to sink in... ;) I can't let my partners walk all over me. I need a give and take relationship. Not just a give relationship. And, I can't let love make all my decisions for me. Love is not enough to keep a relationship alive. It requires work from both partners and for there to be some common ground. A relationship cannot work if only one person is in it.

Philip and I have been dating for almost 4 months. We have yet to have a single argument. I didn't know that was possible. Seriously. I honestly did not know what a healthy relationship was before now. I thought I did. And it scares me because I think there are probably lots of people out there who think they are in healthy relationships and they really aren't. And that makes me sad.

Philip is supportive and sweet and loving and thankful and generous and easy-going and wonderful. Ugh. I'm disgustingly in love with him. He makes it easy to be in a relationship. He wants me to be happy and I want him to be happy. And we make each other happy. And it's so effing wonderful... it's indescribable. I'm sure we disgust people. lol We just have a lot in common and have common goals and it's just SO EASY. How can it be so easy? I love it. :)

Life Update + My Love for my Dogs

My inhaler is apparently working. I had to use it several times in the first few days. However, I haven't used it since Saturday, and I seem to be doing fine. :) So, that is great news. I think I'm going to cancel the follow-up doctor's appointment that I had scheduled for January 2. I'm not interested in going to see the NP who doesn't read when I'm feeling better. She doesn't know what's wrong anyway. I have 2 refills for the inhaler and the inhaler will last me 100 times. At this rate, the inhaler will last 6 months! :)

Joe and I tried to get all of the dogs together to do a Christmas picture to send out with our Christmas cards. I set the timer on my camera and we posed in front of the Christmas tree. It never failed that at least one of the dogs would lay down or look somewhere other than the camera at the last second. So, that didn't work out. Finally our patience wore thin and we gave up on that. We may try again, but our days are numbered before the Christmas cards have to be sent out.

I've been making cookies and fudge and other delicious but bad for you treats. I'm stuffing tins full of goodies to give to people. It's a very slow process. :( And, I keep eating what I've made and then I have to make more. haha... that's not so bad, though. :)

Cody attacked Jippy on Monday. I was a mess. First of all, Cody has never attacked any of the dogs. He is as sweet as can be. Jippy irritates the other dogs, and it's likely that he started the fight (he bites the other dogs and jumps on them when they don't want to play -- he's not vicious... just annoying). Daly has attacked him before, but I thought we had it under control. The dogs know that they aren't allowed to fight (unless they're playing -- It's easy to tell the difference). Cody is especially not allowed to be aggressive because he's so big. He could easily hurt any dog he decided to turn against. It's never been a problem before.

I was walking down the stairs getting ready for work when I heard them fighting outside. I assumed that it was Jippy and Daly. It hasn't happened for a while, but they're the only ones we had ever had a problem with. I ran down the stairs and out the door. Well, as I got to the door, I realized that Cody was on top of Jippy biting him. I started screaming at Cody and I shoved him off as I got out the door. Cody stopped as soon as he heard me, but I still wanted them separated. Jippy was shaking. I haven't really spanked Cody since he was a puppy. There hasn't really been a need. I occasionally slap him on his butt when he's doing something he knows he shouldn't be, but never hard. It's just a little tap. It's just the fact that I have slapped him that upsets him and he knows that he has to stop. It breaks my heart to do that because he gives me the sad puppy look.

Well, this time, I was so upset that I really spanked him. Hard. I don't know if it hurt him or not, but I know I hit him hard. Several times. He gave me the sad puppy face and that just made me cry (I was on the verge before because I was so upset, but that sent me over). Joe took Cody and put him in a crate in the garage while I comforted Jippy. He shook all over. So did I. When I calmed Jippy and Daly down (she got upset over all of the commotion), I went into the garage and talked to Cody. I know, some people think I'm crazy for talking to my dogs, but I swear that they understand most of the time. Cody was upset. He doesn't have a crate. Only Jippy, Daly, and Jack have crates. So, he wasn't used to having to be in a crate. I yelled at him and cried and he was sad. I calmed down and told him that he wasn't allowed to attack his brothers. Then Joe and I went to work. I was crying for part of the ride into work. Cody stayed in the crate all day while we were at work.

It's really upsetting to me. For so many reasons. The dogs are not allowed to attack each other, for one. And then, it was Cody. Cody is the one I least expect it from. I've not had any problems out of him. He's not an aggressive dog. He occasionally growls at strange dogs, but he's never attacked any of them (without provocation -- there was a greyhound who attacked Jack and so Cody bit that dog, but I don't count that... that's in his job description). He's always incredibly patient with the other dogs, even when they are incredibly annoying. I expect better of Cody. I love all of the dogs equally, but I love them all for different reasons. Jack is sweet and cute. Jippy is dumb but adorable. Daly is my eager little girl. Cody is my amazingly loyal and smart and just plain good dog. It's not that I love Cody more, it's just that there is no argument that he is the best dog we have. I don't know if that makes sense. He does what he is told. He always behaves himself. We never have any problems out of him. He's the one you can really trust to not let you down. So, I was in shock and so disappointed that he would do such a thing. And on top of it all, Cody is incredibly strong and so much bigger than the other dogs. He weighs about 80 pounds. He has huge teeth. He could seriously hurt or kill one of the other dogs very easily. I hadn't ever thought twice about it before because it's never been an issue. Now it's in the back of my mind eating away at me. If I think that Cody can't be trusted with the other dogs, other arrangements will have to be made. Arrangements that won't make any of us very happy.

Cody is the only un-neutered dog we have. If this happens again, Cody will be getting neutered, no matter what Joe wants or doesn't want. And I don't want to think about what will have to happen if that didn't help.

I'm sure Cody doing that is just like how my mom felt when I skipped school in high school. She was so disappointed in me. She wouldn't speak to me for weeks. I had always been the good daughter. I never did anything wrong and I got straight As. I'm sure she was shocked. It makes me laugh to think of it that way.

I want to go back to how I don't actually love Cody more than the other dogs, because I'm not sure that it made sense... I mean, why wouldn't I love the "good" dog more than the other dogs? I want to try to explain how it's possible. I love Cody for all the reasons that he is a good dog. He protects me when Joe is not home. He is loyal. He knows lots of tricks. He's eager to please. He's just a good dog.

Jack isn't always perfect. He doesn't always listen (even though he is also a very good dog). However, he's got a different personality. He comes across as human a lot of times. He's stubborn, but sweet as can be. And, he always wants to be with me. So, even though some people wouldn't think of him as as good of a dog as Cody, I love Jack just the same for all of his cute imperfections and all of his human characteristics.

Jippy is the least trained dog we have. He is not smart. He doesn't understand what you're trying to get him to do a lot of the time and when he gets confused, he rolls over on his back and pees on himself (it's called submissive wetting). It irritates Joe. While most people wouldn't see how I could love Jippy as much as Cody or Jack, I do. He needs me to understand him. He tries so very hard to please me. It's easy to see that he doesn't want to upset me. He loves me very much and anyone can see that. It's hard for him to understand, but he still tries. And I love him so very much for it. He has to try much harder than the other dogs. And that means a lot.

Daly was the hardest for me to get attached to. But now, I love her all the same as the other dogs. She is lazy. She is not as smart as Cody or Jack, but she is still smarter than Jippy. As she's becoming an adult (she turned 1 on Friday), she's getting even better. She tries to please. And she's very affectionate. She loves to give kisses. And she's learning lots of new tricks. She loves to be near me. It's easy to see how much she loves me. She's very loyal. She wants to be near me when the other dogs are playing (even though she wants to play as well). She fights it. She runs back and forth between playing and coming back to love on me. It's cute. I know that she loves me as she loves her brothers. And she brings out goodness in her brothers. She can get them to play so easily (when she's not being lazy). She has a lot of goodness in her and anyone can see it.

So, it might not make sense to everyone, but I do love all of my boys dearly and equally. I do not have favorites, although it may seem like it sometimes. I just have different expectations for all of the dogs. But I love them all the same for different reasons. :)