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It’s Hutch signing in to give you this week’s edition of Truth Tuesday. I know it’s been two weeks since you heard from us, and thanks for your patience while we had a little R&R in the Dominican Republic. If you’re not up to date on our story, I suggest you start at the blog post Stew Rewinds Time and catch up. Okay, let’s get this Truth Tuesday started.
Sheena and I had been dating for a couple of years, and I still wasn’t moving at a pace that she desired. I had several reasons that seemed legit, but none of them should’ve hindered my ability to progress in our relationship. In Sheena’s last post she talked about my financial shortcomings. Since this is Tuesday, I’m going to keep it all the way real with yall. As a guy, financial stability is very important to me. I wouldn’t consider myself an overly macho guy, but I wasn’t comfortable moving onto certain elevated relationship stages while I didn’t have my stuff together. This along with a few other factors caused me to be stagnate in our relationship.
I hadn’t made the jump in my career yet, and although I was happy Sheena had arrived, there was still this sense of embarrassment I carried. I decided to peel back another layer of myself and tell her about my financial situation. In retrospect, I chose a bad time (the day before her surprise 30th birthday party) to break this sort of news to Sheena, but when is a good time to tell the woman you love that you don’t make a lot of money? Her reaction was as expected, not good.
Maybe it was the weight of both of us turning a new decade, but I wanted to be upfront with her and let her decide if she wanted to stick around. I strongly believed I would reach my potential, but I honestly didn’t know how long it’d take me. It wasn’t fair to have her thinking I was doing better than I actually was. In Sheena’s last post she joked about wondering how I paid for those dates, but hell I’m trying to figure that one out too lol.
After her birthday party we had a deeper conversation about my financial state. That was the beginning of a pretty rocky phase for us. We argued a lot during that time. She threw my financial situation in my face, and I would find ways to hit her where it hurt too. Like Sheena said in her previous post, hurt people, hurt people. This was so true with both of us. We were two hurt little kids running around repeating the cycle of hurting each other.
We weren’t great communicators, so instead of breaking down our issues and working towards resolution we protected our hurt feelings in the only ways we knew how. Sheena would just cut me off. She would kick me out of her apartment, not answer phone calls/texts and a couple of times she blocked me from being able to call/text her.
I wasn’t the best person at that point in my life, and I started my fair share of arguments too. I did some hurtful things just to be petty. Looking back, I’m sure it was a combination of me not being where I wanted to be, me being immature and once again not having a true grasp on when to fight or fly. So, I decided to tell Sheena we needed a break. I told her I would hope she didn’t start dating anyone else, but I also didn’t want her to waste her time waiting on me to figure things out. The break was tough on both of us and I struggled to figure out what to do next.
Sheena will be back next week to move yall to the homestretch.
My my my! The suspense is killing me. What a great post.
LOL
Great post Hutch! Can’t wait to read next week’s post to see how you both handled the time apart from each other and reconnected!
Thanks!!!
Your timing sucked, but kudos to you for keeping it one hundred. Finances are the number one problem in relationships/marriages. I still don’t like to talk about them. lol
😂😂😂 it definitely sucked! But you’re right finances in relationships are so important.
Most couples, including myself, have been there. They key is not to STAY there. Can’t wait to see what Sheena has to say.
Yes, the key is to not stay in unhealthy places
Y’all should have or actually still could write a book. Can’t wait to the next part.
We’re thinking about it
OMG, I swear my boyfriend and I are going through a very similar situation with some added twist. It’s a relief to know every happy ending doesn’t start with a flawless beginning. Thank you for your transparency.
I’m glad you were able to read this and gain something from our transparency ❤️
Wow I am reading this story in the right time of my life. I resonate with this story a lot so I cannot wait to read next week story. I am so happy you both are being vulunerable about your situation.
Glad you could connect with this post. I hope enjoy the next one.
All relationships have a rocky phase, especially when everyone is trying to reach that certain financial comfort. Hutch, I think honesty is always the best policy. You did right to be upfront and let her decide. Great post!!
Thank you!!!