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My story started out with pursuing this picture-perfect dream of being a wife, mother, buying a huge house, having cars and just breezing through the days with my perfect life.

I didn’t grow up in a very family-oriented environment, so I looked to the television and books to give me what an ideal family should be for a woman. I was determined to beat the odds that my family history consisted of instability, anger, lies, jealousy, and pretending.

Looking back, it seems that right after college, I went right into trying to obtain this image.

Truthfully, I didn’t really “live my life” like most would say I should have. I have never got to really know myself fully. I didn’t really learn of my desires, my goals, my character, my likes, my dislikes, my style, or anything that a person should already have confidence in before getting into a relationship.

 

Growing Up

Due to a troublesome childhood, I was so focused on experiencing the perfect family idea to where it was all I had in mind. Yes, even with me going to college.

I had gotten my associates degree and was introduced to church around this time, so I put my energy and focus into living the “right” life and hoping to find a corporate job. I just knew with me now following God, I was definitely on my way to living that family life I always dreamed of. It felt like I was on my way to breaking generational curses and showing my family that we are NOT the same.

Funny thing is, I also never wanted to be a housewife, but being my own boss was never a thought process because I never had that instilled in me nor modelled before me. So, in a sense, I was still confused and lost with no for real goals or vision in mind. Only a fairy tale of what society and tv placed in me. Guess you can say I was focused on the wrong things at this point huh?

Little did I know, that I had so much more in me that will push me far beyond working for corporate America. This is still a work in progress currently, but I have a divorce to thank for pushing me to where I am now. More on that later.

 

Pushing People Away

Anyhow, during this process, I had not seen how judgmental I had gotten over the years. I was so focused on this perfect image and doing everything a church girl should do to be perfect. I started pushing people away who did not live up to the Bible’s standards. I found myself growing deeper in religion and not deeper in a relationship with God and His people. I didn’t realise that EVERYONE was His people, no matter if they confessed to the lifestyle I confessed to or not.

So, just realising that part, now I see I missed and passed up what could have grown into wonderful friendships and stronger family bonds. I pushed people away that I was supposed to grow and learn from. In the event, I pushed people away who was supposed to grow and learn from me as well. During this time, I had let go of a relationship that was not bad at all, but because he did not help me on the journey of celibacy, and with the advice of the church, I let him go.

By now, you can probably imagine the “what-if”s that started to swarm my mind. The “I probably would have been in such-n-such place by now if I had stayed with such-n-such.”

 

Looking So Perfect

Life was good for me, right? I ended getting married to a youth minister. He was loved and adored by everyone, even me. We were super good friends. Almost like brother and sister. We cared and protected each other that much. No sex before marriage. Just good friends and church buddies in ministry. We were the perfect match according to church standards.

I couldn’t understand why it was so hard for others to live right according to the Bible. I couldn’t understand why it was so hard for people to hop on board. If you do that then you will get everything you prayed for right? Well, I got my husband, my home, my son, became a youth teacher, started school to obtain my bachelors so I can become an accountant, and was looking so perfect to everyone around me.

 

Choices

But Then Life Happened. The divorce happened. The bankruptcy happened. The hitting rock bottom happened. This was the turning point for me that caused me to see how imperfect and judgmental I had grown over the years. It showed me that it was time to be a little more sensitive towards people, realising that we all will go through situations that are hard to get up from. I realised that it takes strength to make the right choices. Even when everything is not handed to you when, where, and how you want it to be in life.

The choices I made in life on this journey led me to be the founder of Conquering Relationships blog. The story is to be continued.

 

I'm Brandy, mother of one who loves reading, skating, buying hats, buying colourful shoes, and buying colourful lipsticks for no reason at all.

I'm very introverted, but over time I've been coming out of my shell. My past experiences and the observation of today's relationships has pushed me into the passion for creating the blog Conquering Relationships.

I want to interact with a variety of men and women on getting to know your thoughts on relationships. We all come from various experiences and we don't think alike, so I created my blog to help us try to focus on being more positive and less judgmental.

I'm hoping people will feel free to voice their thoughts and be willing to receive views that will help them grow in the areas they lack in with communication and perception. Everything in our lives happened because of a choice we made.

So, in order to bounce back and have more positive, successful relationships and friendships, we must first do the HARD PART: which is to examine ourselves and the part we played. I want us to work daily on being more productive, positive, and resourceful in our encounters with people that cross our path.

www.brandyyates.com is the website.