Juliet's Journal

Jan. 7: Relationship Woes

January 7, 2008

Hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was crazy busy, which was nice at the time but I paid for it all day yesterday!

You know, in our Relationship 101 segments, we discuss the importance of keeping romance alive to keep a relationship going. One of the techniques we hear every single time from every single expert is: Have a “date night,” Preferably once a week. It doesn’t have to be a “let’s go out and have drinks, then go to an expensive dinner, then go dancing” kind of date. It’s more of a “let’s just have alone time and bond.”

I’ve been dating Doug for eight months, so it’s obviously still fresh and new and awesome BUT it’s easy to get into a rut where you just hang out every night at home and order in and watch TV in sweats (typically sweats I’ve been wearing for three days in a row). I like doing that (not wearing sweats three days in a row; the staying in part), and trust me after waking up at 5 a.m., five days a week and working till late afternoon, I don’t always have the energy to head out on the town. But we’ve made a commitment to do just that once every week (if it’s within reason, of course). I don’t have children, so obviously that makes it a bit easier to head out on the town. But, as the experts say, find a way however you can to put a little couple time into every week.

So, we went to dinner at Amanda’s in Hoboken — a great place to have a quiet date or bring the adults for a family dinner. Then we had drinks at a nearby bar, “Buskers,” one of our favorite haunts. We had an entertaining moment there actually. I was wearing the ring (cocktail ring, not engagement) that Doug got me for Christmas. This ring has a large, sparkly, light colored stone in the center which, if you look quickly, could appear to be a diamond.

So we’re sitting at “Buskers” chatting and the cocktail waitress, who we see all the time, walks by, looks at my hand and starts freaking out, saying something to the effect of “Let me see that ring! When did it happen!” hahahahaaaaaaa. She thought we’d gotten engaged over the holiday; poor Doug. He’s like “well, uh, it’s not, uh…” I guess maybe I shouldn’t be wearing it on my left hand ring finger?

Saturday night was yet another great night — an engagement party for our friends Derek and Ashley. Two very attractive, very nice people who will have gorgeous children. Derek went to Georgetown with Doug’s cousin Brett, who is dating my friend Rebecca. Very incestuous…. So we all went to a restaurant in the city called “Crispo” — cool place, by the way. It’s on 14th street between 7th and 8th Avenues, and it’s very deceiving from the outside. It looks like a small trattoria, but once you walk inside, it curves and swerves into all these little nooks and crannies. It’s Italian, family-style. Unfortunately, I didn’t eat much because I was still full from lunch. Anyway, there were like 22 or so people there in our group — all the guys went to school together and the rest were wives or fiancées or girlfriends. They’ve all pretty much been buddies for years, and the girls have all become close. It was so cool to be a part of that. I’ve never really seen such a large group of friends stay so close after college. I’ve also never seen so many attractive women who actually weren’t clawing at each other, hehe. These girls were FUN, too. I think I’m in trouble! We actually started the night off at our friends’ Mike and Mairen’s house playing Wii bowling. Obviously Mairen had sense enough to avoid going up against a skill monster such as myself, but the boys did not and let’s just say, they paid for it. I’m sorry, who won? Who had two strikes? Who had a spare practically every time they were up? That would me MOI. The Wii is crazy – Mike and Doug played baseball and tennis after I crushed them (clearly they knew it would not be pretty to ask me to join them again. Why torture yourself?) And after about 30 minutes of play, Mike actually had to go in and change his shirt because he was sweating so much. It’s a workout, that Wii! I’m into it. Forget the gym, man; I’m going to play video games! I hear they have some cooking game? Can I lose weight cooking? This could be my dream come true!

So today’s show kicked off with more Brit drama. She’s out of the hospital and apparently nurturing herself back to health by knocking back mimosas. Nice. I guess she’s working hard to get custody of those kids. Dr. Ablow’s assessment of the inclusion of Dr. Phil into Britney’s world was on point: The last thing she needs is someone claiming to “help her” by thrusting her into the spotlight. As both Dr. Ablow and Mike said, do it without the cameras and then we’re getting somewhere.

I felt kind of bad for our young guest “Patricia,” whose mom is all over her now that she’s discovered the 15-year old Myspace pages. I should preface this by saying I am a loyal News Corp. employee, and said company owns Myspace, HOWEVER, I just can’t help but get a nervous feeling about those networking sites. I’ve had a couple bad experiences. Example: boyfriend has one, you happen to see it, notice a “friend” you’re not too happy about him communicating with, etc. I admit the whole phenomenon sort of passed me by. Anyway, I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for kids these days with the advent of these sites. It’s clever on one hand, but as we all know, kids can be cruel and this is such a powerful tool… Parents should listen to Parry Aftab’s tips — she’s an internet expert and will really help guide you along.

All I have to say to our beautiful, intelligent, charming guest who is dating a guy that’s been jerking her around for months now is… DUMP THAT CHUMP. Did we make that clear enough for her during the actual segment? We’ve ALL been in relationships that are unhappy. And we’ve all probably stayed in them longer than we should because…in the beginning…they were so wonderful to us. But that’s why we don’t marry everyone we fall in love with! People change after that honeymoon period. And when you’re dating someone who belittles, insults, demeans you, doesn’t show up for important events, doesn’t show up for UN-important events, gets mad when you go out on the town with friends but doesn’t take much of, if any, interest in your friends or family, gets jealous all the time — you know what you need to do?!? You need to DUMP THAT CHUMP.

Our guest said her boyfriend (if you can call him that) did pretty much all of those things. Her defense as to why she stays with him is that they’ve been together for so long (on and off) and they’ve become so “close.” She feels sorry for him because she knows in the past he’s been good to her. She feels like he’s hurting. I totally know that feeling.

I was with someone who wasn’t very nice to me after that few-months-long honeymoon phase. I, of course, held on to the fact that he would get back to the way he used to be before he became a, well, JERK. But the longer you hold on and allow yourself to be treated poorly, the worse off you become. You KNOW you’re being treated badly, yet you accept it by staying with that person. That’s when your confidence slowly gets whittled down till there’s nothing left but raw hurt. At that point, you stay with the guy (or girl) because you simply have no self-esteem and no feeling that you can get anything better than what you have. It happens over and over again with friends, with family…

We all can play shrink so well when it comes to our friends, but when it comes to playing shrink to ourselves, it’s like we lose all sense. Our guest told us during the commercial break that she spends a lot of time daydreaming about the kind of guy who WOULD make her happy. Doesn’t that say it all?

I actually read an old journal the other night; I used to keep it during a relationship I had that was not very good, to say the least. I cared a lot about the guy and vice versa, but we weren’t compatible and we pushed each other’s buttons. So the other night I was flipping through the pages and I saw an entry that I wrote shortly before we broke up. I talked about how I wanted to find someone who –novel thought — thinks I’m amazing. Someone who thinks I “hung the moon” as I wrote. My friend used to use that expression and I thought it was fitting. To feel “cherished” was something I was dying to feel. I broke up with that person shortly after that entry. I think it was clear that if I was saying “I’m looking for someone who actually LIKES me,” it was time to move on from that current relationship.

When you do make that decision, it’s scary, but it’s also so liberating because you know just by the sheer fact that you actually DID it, that you actually TOOK CONTROL, you once again HAVE control.

I know blogs like this maybe should be a little more show oriented, but I think I’ve gone through just about everything when it comes to relationships. I’ve made such idiotic mistakes, I’ve been crushed, and I’ve crushed. For the first time I feel like I can actually offer advice, because not too long ago, I finally took my own.

Whew!