Women, Preserve Yourselves.

When an old relationship of mine was failing, I turned to Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and one thing that struck me was Dr. Grey's idea that women have gas tanks - we love to give and care for those in our lives and after a while the gas runs out unless someone refuels us by giving us the care and love we need back. Men have no idea how true this is. Women have no idea how true this is.

I haven't had a chance to catch up with my good friend, L, in a long time so I gave her a call today. Usually we're both just busy, lately it's hard sometimes to get her full attention because she's still honeymooning in her relationship and everything is about her boyfriend these days. I understand, I've been there. In fact, she used to hate my ex-boyfriend, in part because I gave him all my attention at the time.

She didn't sound too good. You know how you can tell your friends aren't alright as soon as they say "hello"? I'd known that she'd been helping her relatively new boyfriend deal financially with various traffic tickets, court dates, his car being towed, etc. Last week, it was getting stressful and that rush of love that made her swoop in and save him was obviously waning. She'd found this week that after supporting herself in a comfortable life for many years she wasn't getting anything done for herself, she couldn't afford a haircut and was knee-deep in his-and-hers debt...

"I'm so frustrated. I feel like we're married and we're not. He's starting to feel like a burden to me and I don't want to feel this way."

Every woman I know gets this way. They go all out of their way to spend their time with a man, and help him clean, or pay for things, or do any number of nice things because they care. There's nothing wrong with that. But if the effort even seems one-sided, you get one unhappy woman and sometimes this woman doesn't even know why. She did all these things for the man she loves out of the love in her own heart and went out of her way and felt crappy when he didn't go out of his way for her, sometimes because he couldn't, didn't know how, or didn't even know he was supposed to "go out of his way" he was just loving her the way he usually did.

Who's fault is this?

My girl was starting to resent her man for needing so much from her, but she gave it to him. I firmly believe that often, men will get away with what you allow, they will take everything you are willing to give. I believe that women need to learn how to set boundaries for themselves before they resent the one they love. I told my girl that perhaps, this was the lesson she needed to learn, and she needed to ask herself from here on out, "If i do this for him, will i resent him later?"

Will you resent him later??

Women start to often think that if he gave her flowers once or twice that he suddenly deserves her continuous utmost effort (which often leads to her prioritizing him over her), thinking that they will receive in return ultra-special treatment, while their man is thinking he did a great job and is still getting what he wants done by being a normal boyfriend.

Stop!!!

It is not your lover's fault, because it is not his responsibility to handle your responsibilities. But neither is it your responsibility to handle his. If you drive to see him/help him pay his bills/buy some groceries/pay for dinner instead of doing homework/saving money/getting alone time will you resent him? You'll ruin a relationship with the resentment you allowed to creep in. Don't put yourself out in love if it's going to decrease your love later. Take care of yourself first. Preserve yourself and then love him.