Advice

When I told my Uncle that I got engaged, his advice was this:

My 2 biggest things in a relationship are being able to speak your truth and have it be heard, and being able to hear your partners truth. The rest is all icing on the cake.

I've been thinking about that a lot. It put to words something that had been floating around in my mind for a while. M. is very good at this. I am not. I have a tendency to be quite selfish. I tell him he needs to open up and tell me what he's feeling and what he wants, all the while figuring out how to convince him that what I want is best. I wasn't even aware of it for the longest time until he finally said something to me about it. Now, I'm trying really hard to just listen and to understand that his needs are valid even if I don't understand them. It's hard. I never really had to that before. It was always whatever I wanted or thought was best for me, and now it's what's best for both of us, and finding a compromise that is best for both of us. I'm learning to sacrifice some of myself so he can be in a better place, learning to find a balance, learning to live as part of something bigger than just me, learning how to form my own family.