Steve was making himself a cup of coffee. It was almost nine o’clock in the evening, and he had a long night ahead of him. Brenda walked in, angry again. She started talking to him, and he walked away from her.
“Walk away as usual,” said Brenda angrily.
“I don’t have the mental capacity to deal with all this at the moment,” Steve told Brenda.
“When do you ever want to talk about us?” Brenda asked Steve.
“What’s the point if you’re always ‘right’?” Steve asked Brenda.
“Look who’s talking. You never admit it when you’re wrong, and you never want to talk through issues,” said Brenda.
“Brenda, I can’t keep doing this,” said Steve.
“Neither can I. We’re done,” Brenda said as she walked out of the room.
She went, packed her things and left. Steve was on his laptop, trying to focus on his work. He didn’t acknowledge her departure from the house. Brenda cried all the way to her house. She had hoped Steve would stop her from leaving, but it wasn’t surprising that he hadn’t.
When they started having frequent fights where each of them claimed to be right, Steve became distant. Brenda tried to bring up conversations on the matter, but that only worsened the situation. They couldn’t talk to each other about anything without fighting. It had been three months of anger and fights before they broke up.
Steve didn’t text or call to check on Brenda. He instead waited to see if she’d posted anything to confirm that she got home safely. She put up a post; Steve saw the update but didn’t open it to view. Each went on with their lives.
They didn’t have mutual friends who spent time together, so they never bumped into each other. After a while, each of them started dating again. Brenda met a cool guy through one of her friends. She was looking for a committed relationship, and so was he. It looked like a perfect match.
For the first time in a long while, she didn’t think about Steve. She was so happy that she was moving on and with a guy who seemed keen to keep her in his life. Then, their first fight happened. She had dropped by his place unannounced, and so had his mother.
The reason for the fight was Brenda’s dressing. She was dressed appropriately to see her boyfriend but inappropriately for her boyfriend’s mother.
“Are you stupid? Why would you show up dressed like that?” Asked her new boyfriend.
“I didn’t know your mother was around,” Brenda explained.
He went on to say unkind words to her. She felt degraded, and it took her back to her fights with Steve. Although he would also act like he was justified to be angry at her, he never used unkind words on her. Her new boyfriend didn’t entertain the idea that he could be wrong for overreacting.
Unfortunately, once you notice something about someone, you can easily spot it once it happens again. It kept happening, and Brenda quickly called it quits with him. He tried reaching out, but she didn’t see the need to have the same conversation because he couldn’t acknowledge that he was in the wrong.
She started going on dates with more people, but it didn’t materialize to anything more. A month after the break up with her last boyfriend, Steve called her. He asked to see her. They agreed to meet at a certain restaurant.
“This is quite a surprise, and I love the choice of restaurant. It’s on my bucket list,” said Brenda.
“I had a feeling you’d like it,” said Steve.
“Do we cut through the small talk, or should we wait after our meal?” Asked Brenda.
“I had missed your straightforwardness,” Steve said with a smile.
“Something about old dogs and new tricks,” said Brenda.
“I finally got the promotion I was working towards, and I wanted to celebrate it with you,” Steve told Brenda.
“That’s amazing! Congratulations!” Brenda told him.
They toasted to it, and Steve proceeded to tell her all about it. The food was amazing, and they had a wonderful time catching up. As they were having cocktails after the meal, Brenda asked Steve, “Why did you want to celebrate with me?”
“I have been doing a lot of introspection, and you were right. I couldn’t admit when I was wrong and put up a wall when you tried talking about issues. I messed up something great,” Steve told her.
“Thank you for admitting that. I had made peace with never hearing you say those words, but now that you said it, it means a lot,” Brenda said emotionally.
“How have you been? Are you dating?” Steve asked her.
“I was. It was good for a while, but it ended. Ironically, I understood how you must have felt when I tried talking to you all those times when you knew we’d end up arguing further,” Brenda told him.
“Looks like it’s been a learning curve for both of us,” said Steve.
“Yes. I’m mostly surprised by all this. You didn’t even bat a lid when I left your house or check on me for months,” said Brenda.
“I can’t apologize enough for not doing better. You didn’t deserve that,” said Steve.
“I had my part to play in that breakup. We needed to uncouple, otherwise we would have remained miserable,” said Brenda.
“I would like to give it another try. Would you be open to that?” Steve asked Brenda.
“This has caught me off-guard, but I am open to starting from friendship and see how it goes,” said Brenda.
They started meeting up for weekly dates as friends. Steve told her of his failed attempts at dating, which made him realize he needed to work on himself. He had the same issues with the women until it dawned on him that he was the problem. Brenda had a similar experience. He also realized Brenda pushed him to be better and supported his dreams.
It didn’t take them to get back together romantically and with a renewed commitment to make it work. A year later, they got married.
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