Sponsored by Nuffnang Australia

About two months ago, I started a series of Advice posts for my readers who wanted to send me questions to reach out for my opinion – about anything! As a result, 100% of the questions I seemed to have received were about relationships. Through that experience, I realised how much “romantic relationships” have taken over young adult’s minds (I assume my readers are about ages 14-25).

Romantic relationships have taken such a large part of our lives that many girls (or boys) have even gone to the path of thinking about suicide for their failed relationships. I.. for one, am absolutely against this. Now, let’s talk more about this and share our experiences together to make sure no one follows the same path as us.

Do not let your partner cross the line (XTL).

Not just for girls, but also for boys. Naturally, women are ultra sensitive and we can also go overboard sometimes. It’s important to keep this in mind.

It’s ok for your boyfriend to raise their voice at you if the TV is on and he is on the other side of the room. But it is not ok if he throws a fork at you to get your attention.

It’s ok for your partner to fistbump you. But it is not ok if he punches you on any part of your body when he is angry. Whether you get bruises or not, it is not okay.

I’m sure we’ve all experienced or heard of an experience of an abusive relationship. Sometimes, it may not just be physcially abusive, but it could also be emotionally abusive, or vocally abusive.

Any of these abusive actions are able to make you feel “worse off” in the relationship and are therefore classified as XTL.

It’s always hard to bring up a past experience that has traumatised you.. but I think it’s necessary to face the past and be able to talk about it. It is good to talk about your experiences with others who may have shared the same kind of experience.. it’s always easier when you know you’re not alone.

We’ve all gone through bad break ups. I had a particular bad one.

I mean.. we were all young and silly at one time of our lives. We meet the wrong person, love the wrong person.. and when we realise it, we try to leave, and that’s when we get stuck. No break ups are easy. If it’s easy, deep feelings were never involved.

For me.. I had a very loving “summer-love-story” – but it lasted a lot longer than a Summer. I was 16 or 17 when I met him and we shared almost every minute possible together. We sneaked into the library to play and laugh, we sneaked into golf courses to cuddle, we sneaked into schools near my house to just sit around and talk, we climbed on rooftops to watch the stars, we… did amazing.. and ofcourse romantic but childish things together. And never was there a moment.. where I felt.. unloved.

We took hundreds and thousands of selfies together each day. We were young and poor, but we were able to purchase the sweetest and cutest little gifts with minimal money.

We were so perfect together..

When we both graduated from highschool, we went our separate ways. I started to hang around a new crowd at university and he left highschool and started to work. We had very different perspectives of how our life would be in the future. I turned 18, and I just wanted to have fun. He started to settle down because highschool was all the fun he had, and started to try to lock me down.

As an 18 year old girl who had just started uni and started to make all these new friends who ran clubbing communities, and dance classes, and other societies, I refused. Again and again, I refused to stay home, I refused to spend every minute possible together.. and we started to drift…

Immediately, he started to feel like he was losing me. With the love story we shared, he refused to believe that I wanted to spend time with my own friends, and I wanted to spend time with other people but him! He started to..

XTL

Now.. lucky for me, I had very loving friends and family who supported me.

He continuously threatened to do things to me had I left him, he waited around my house and my workplace to find me and talk to me.. When I had refused to stay with him, he would punch the wall and shout at me. I was frightened.

As an 18 year old girl who had just stepped into adulthood, I had no idea what to do. With the threatening, with the stalking, with the hundreds of calls I’d receive in a day…

I knew there was only one thing to do. I called 000 (for those who are not in Australia, 000 is the national police line). In the end, I commenced an AVO against him, and decided not to go ahead and we worked things out from there and are now actually friends again.

But the moral of the story is to “reach out to someone when someone else has XTL”

We need to reach out for help when someone else has XTL. We need to educate our friends and family – especially the young ones – to reach out for help. It’s not easy to be brave enough to tell someone what’s happened to us. It’s never easy to reach out for help but with the hundreds and thousands of helplines available in each country, with the hundreds and thousands of people we have who care for us every day, it is necessary.

If you have a story you’d like to share, please tell me in the comment box.

If you are in a situation where someone else has XTL, you can reach out to me.

He and I broke up 7 months ago and we’d been dating for around 2.5 years. Whilst I know that we weren’t right for each other, am now a lot happier away from him and know that I’ve grown so much since the breakup, it’s still a punch in the guts to see facebook photos of him with a new girl. (I’ve deleted him from FB, but photos still appear because all our mutual friends.)

There’s nothing to hate about the new girl either – she seems sincere and long-term relationship material.

I just feel so pathetic right now. I’m a girl who’s got a stellar bunch of girlfiends, a dream job lined up next year and dare I say it, I’m quite happy with my looks. How can a boy from the past make me feel so rotten and teary right now?

Ex’s…

I think this is a common issue for us girls… actually, for anyone!

Although you have “moved on”, when you had a close relationship with your ex, when you’ve found out they have a new partner.. you are bound to feel strange at the beginning!! It’s not because you still want to be with them, but it’s because.. you are so used to seeing him with you.

What I can say is… if you strongly feel that you were better off apart from him and that you’ve grown so much from the past relationship,  the best way to overcome this “frustration”  is to “get used to it”. I often get told this alot – “You need to be comfortable with having him in the same room!”

Now, if you’re much like me – stubborn and rebellious, you’d most likely refuse to accept this idea. But the sad truth is, if you can’t be comfortable with having him in the same room, you are only making yourself unhappy. You’re allowing him to affect you!

Much like learning to walk, learning to draw, learning to play a computer game, learning to put on false eyelashes, you always start somewhere. At first, you will be frustrated because you have no control over your feelings, but once you’re there for some time, you will eventually learn from this experience and become a stronger person.

Such a cliche, but it’s a famous quote for a reason – “what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger”

I’m really happy to hear that you feel you have a great bunch of girlfriends, your dream job lined up, and strong self-confidence!! Please do not let this bring you down!!

Once last quote because personally, I think quotes have really helped me get through a lot in life..

“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. Everything happens for a reason”

If you are not already seeing someone, I promise you will find someone who you will develop a much stronger chemistry with, have a much stronger bond with, and be much happier with. It will be worth it. And when it comes, you will be thinking back to this moment… and you will say to yourself “it was worth the wait”.

For now, have fun with your girlfriends!! Whinge to your girlfriends if you must, but do not let it affect you for that much longer. Get used to it, shrug it off, and move on :)

Remember, you can email me on janice@chaigyaru.com if you’d like me to write a post for you!

This is going to be my very first “advice” blog post!! Every week on Tuesday, I will be making a blog post answering questions emailed and facebooked to me – whether it’s about relationships or family or work or school. Shoot me an email (janice@chaigyaru.com).

This is the first question from a reader. These will be kept anonymous so don’t worry!

Just want to know, what should you do when an ex drunk calls you, then texts you a month later saying he’s sorry and that he misses you? he didn’t cheat on me or anything, he broke up with me in july and he randomly messaged me the other night saying he missed me and he didnt really wanna break up………. and it’s kinda confusing what im suppose to do/say about it?

Okay girl friend, seems like you’ve got an extremely confused ex-boyfriend here.

Ofcourse depending on the situation as a whole, such as how long you were dating him for, and how deep into the relationship you were, my advice could be very different. Sometimes, men tend to forget what they have until they’ve lost it.. and I think it happens with women too. There’s a quote… “sometimes two people need to fall apart to realise how much they need to fall back together”.. do you think you fit in this category?

But look.. firstly.. take a step back and think about it.. why did you let him go to begin with? And why did he break up with you in July? Is it because you two were always arguing? Is it because one of you had a different religion? Was it because you were both not ready for commitment? Was it his friends you couldn’t get along with? (The questions can go on and on and on.. but you need to answer yourself)

The “reason” why you broke up in July makes a big difference as to how you should react towards this confused ex-boyfriend.

You need to think about yourself too. Do you want to get back with him? What was it about him that you liked and disliked? Make a table of “pros” and “cons” and weigh it out! If  he hadn’t called you.. would you have called him to ask for him back?

And for the record.. I never believe in “drunken” words. Do you even want to be with a guy who only tells you the ‘so-called-truth’ when he is drunk and not thinking straight? Chances are.. maybe he wasn’t even actually “drunk” and just taking advantage of the situation to pretend he is drunk because he has too much pride to speak for himself when he is “sober”..

Is that someone you want to be with?

I recommend you to let him talk to you when he calls you.. and answer all my questions in your head and and if he texts you.. reply with “talk to me when you’re sober”. If he still texts you when he is sober.. it means he is probably genuinely sorry.