What I want (countering the guilt)

WARNING! Introspective crappy personal post ahead.

I feel incredibly guilty about Andy. And I feel guilty towards both myself, and to a certain degree, Frank, for feeling guilty in the first place. What a mess of emotions.

I fell so quickly and completely out of love with Andy. All it took were some conversations with other people about him and my issues, and all of a sudden it was gone. When Frank's said to me something like 'so why are you with this guy?' and all I could come up with was that he was nice. Which is unfair. he has a lot of excellent qualities. What was telling was that I couldn't/can't think of them. What I admired most about him was his strength, and when he broke up with me because of his parents, it destroyed something. I know he tried to fix it, but I think my respect was already too far gone. What's a rationalisation, and what's real? This is not a list of what was wrong with that relationship. Perhaps when Andy told me that it wasn't that I didn't want to get married, I just didn't want to marry him, he was right. We'll come back to this marriage issue another day.

But, here's what I do want. And it'd do me well to keep this in mind as I move forward.

I started writing a list. This is Sam's five things, after all, and who doesn't love a good list? But I think what I want can be summed up more simply than a list.

I want a partner.

I've never really felt that before. I think my mum and dad have it, but I haven't. Up until Andy, the guys I dated were not my equal in some way. They were happy to let me do the work, or the thinking, or set the pace, the tone, whatever. Not that they were less than me, I just never felt like we were working together as a team. I want to be a team. Andy was too far the other way. He wanted all the control. He told me once he thought we could never work out because I was too strong. There was no sense of sharing or joint decision making, really he wanted to make the decisions and have me be happy with them.

I'd say my family is a model of what I want, which gives me hope I can have it too (or again). Mum and dad are partners with different strengths and ideas who work hard together. Our family as a whole is a team, each putting one another first when need be and working together. Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow, and sometimes you're carried. Idealised, yes, but basically true.

So, now all I need to do is find my partner. Right?