How I stopped Comparing my Relationship to Others

One thing that I have always been good at is comparing myself to others. Does my hair look as good as her's? Why can’t my skin look as clear as theirs? Why am I not more successful? These questions are some of the ones that rattle around constantly in my head and they are not going away any time soon. That is the joy of being human. However, one comparison I stopped doing was comparing my loving relationship with my boyfriend to other couples around us. One thing that I will admit is that my relationship with him was my first. He is my first and only love. I began dating him when I was twenty-one, which feels late in the game for me. Sure I had plenty of crushes and silly flirtatious antics in high school, but nothing serious. I was the type of girl that dove into her fantasy books and movies and absolutely swooned at whatever handsome misunderstood love interest did to impress the heroine. Not that I was expecting my boyfriend to save me from a dragon or rescue me from an imprisoning tower anytime soon. Even I could admit that was ridiculous. I had such high expectations of what love was from fiction, that I did not see how much I was loved already.

I would listen to my other friends in relationships tell me what romantic things they did that weekend or what their significant other did for them. I would get confused as to why my boyfriend wasn’t making me breakfast in bed or buying me flowers randomly. Was I being a bad girlfriend because I wasn’t getting this treatment? The funny thing was that I was getting this treatment, I just couldn’t see it. Along with these amazing things I would hear from my friends, I would also hear the not so beautiful sides of their relationships. I would hear of their constant fights or how they would annoy each other and say hurtful things that they would regret. Often I would be stuck in the middle and hear both sides of the story and hear twice the amount of turmoil in their relationships.

This is when my thinking shifted. My boyfriend and I very rarely fight and if there is an issue about something, we talk it out and not go tell everyone about our private relationship. I love him for that. I never have to worry about him telling his coworkers about a little spat we had. Hearing the good and bad about people’s relationships opened my eyes to the imperfections that exist in relationships. I think about my friends’ relationships and I think about how I would not want to spend my life with someone who I was constantly fighting with even if they did romantic things for me.

My boyfriend treats me wonderfully. He buys me flowers, makes me dinner, takes me out so I can wear my new dresses, and most importantly, listens and cares for me. I know it’s cliché, but he does make me a better person. He shows his love for me in many different ways that might not seem conventional or would fit other people’s boxes. Not everyone’s relationship is the same. And I’m not saying that mine is superior, but it is the right one for me and I wouldn’t want it any other way. After over a year together, I can’t imagine my life with anyone else. I don’t need my boyfriend fighting dragons for me and rescuing me from the villains in my life. He doesn’t need to prove his love to me because he is already my knight in shining armor. I still read my fantasy novels and live for the clichés between the characters, but I find myself not obsessing over their relationship because I have my own love to swoon over.