Christmas Almost Ruined My Relationship

It’s crazy to think that the holidays can tear through your relationship. It’s the time we all look forward too, especially when you have a significant other to share it with. We all, at one point, think of kissing our loved one under the mistletoe, hitting up Christmas parties in matching sweaters or pajamas, or finally bringing someone home to stop our aunties from asking us “When are you going to get a man?” Unfortunately, before that got a chance to happen for me, my partner and I had to come to a sad realization, we may not be right for each other.

When the holidays came around, I never thought about my partner not celebrating the same things that I did, and I especially never thought of them celebrating nothing at all. As I was getting all of our festivities together, my partner sat me down to tell me he didn’t believe in celebrating. I was torn. I really didn’t know what to say or how to react, as I was still trying to be understanding of where he was coming from. He was an Israelite and did not celebrate any pagan holidays. Educating me on his beliefs and his reasons why, I definitely could not argue with him about where he stood. But it seemed impossible for him to understand why I still chose to celebrate.

I, honestly never gave a fuck about the politics when it came to holidays. I don’t look at the history of why it began, and I know plenty of you may be looking your nose down on it, but that’s because you are putting that history onto my present life, as my partner did. The holidays for me, was nothing more than it simply being the holidays. An excuse to be around family that I don’t see as often as I would hope. So it added on to my already extreme happiness for the end of the year celebrations. Everything has a dark background, but I feel, with anything, it’s what you make of it that can change it from being a negative or positive thing.

I tried to come up with different solutions where both of our beliefs was respected, but as ideas kept getting shut down, it quickly became clear that we wouldn’t spend any holidays together. Looking into the future, knowing we both want kids, when it came to celebrating birthdays and Christmas, I realized our kids would never have their dad around. I didn’t want that life for me, I wanted someone I could celebrate with. It wasn’t until this whole incident happen that I started to think of how what someone believes in, their faith, can truly affect your future. It became a true lesson for me when thinking of the person I want to be with. It opened up a new wave of questions for me to consider asking when dating. I was never truly impacted on dealing with someone with different expectations from my own, as far as the holidays, until him and I. And I think we both didn’t understand the level of change it meant for us when thinking long term. It really affected us to the point where we considered breaking up because we couldn’t see a future that made the both of us happy.

Now dating, I look at everyyyyyything. I ask about long term goals, family goals, household goals, anything, because I am getting older and getting ready to jump into that stage of my life where I want more. How do they expect their wife to be? Do they even want to be married or even believe in marriage. How soon do they want kids and if they even do want kids? How many? Where do they expect to live?

So here is my task for you all. Think of what’s important to you as you think about your relationship. What are your concerns or hopes for it? What can you deal with or what is the deal breaker? Think of questions to ask that truly applies to the idea of how you want you and your partner to be. But the main and number one question should always be, are they ready for what you’re ready for?