It’s been…hectic…

This post brought to you by TwoOfUs. All opinions are 100% mine.

Things have been pretty hectic lately. I’m so overloaded with work that I’m close to losing my mind. The biggest goal for my leaving that horrible office job was for Sean and I to be able to spend more time together. This hasn’t really been working out for either of us considering we’re BOTH so bogged down with work we’ve resorted to chit-chat whenever we pass each other. We have a lot of goals and dreams that we’re working hard to meet, but I’m hoping it doesn’t put a permanent strain on things in the meantime.

I’ve been floating around TwoOfUs.org, it’s a site specifically for relationships. There are different columns for advise, and tips on keeping your relationship fresh. It starts in the Dating category, and works its way from Dating to Exclusive, Engagements, Married couples, and even parents. Obviously being with Sean for as long as I have (6 years in July) we’ve pretty much lost the ‘category’ in which we’re in. We’ve skipped the exclusive stage, we’ve spoken about marriage, life dreams and children and already know that we’ll be together forever, but even without the ring we’ve passed the ‘engaged’ stage. We’re more like an old married couple than anything else. So I found myself reading through multiple categories. Even though we’re not officially engaged/married – we still live our lives as though we are. All of our finances are joined, everything we do we consult the other person, both of our names are on my SUV – there’s no separations there. While I did enjoy the articles and found a few areas to be informative, I’m still having trouble locating that ‘grey’ area that my relationship is in (not that Grey is bad in this case, there’s just no special category name). Life isn’t black and white, the grey tone areas are where people LIVE, I wish there was more about the grey areas on Two of Us.org, but the information on the page itself is helpful.

I think the one thing that caught my eye was the article about over sharing. I find that I do over-share with certain people, but at the same time I know that Sean also knows everything I’m volunteering. There are more personal and private aspects to our life that I don’t blast out all over the internet, or even with close friends. There has to be some kind of separation to insure that you don’t leave your relationship vulnerable.

Another article that caught my eye was to Discuss Finances Before Marriage.  I’ve completely screwed the pooch on this one.  Our finances have pretty much been merged for the last 5 1/2 years.  The upside is we’re fully aware of how much money is needed to get our bills paid, and how much we have left for personal spending.  I’ll admit that I’m the big spender in the relationship, he’s more of the “I can’t justify this” kind of person.  It does take a lot of effort on both our parts to balance things out… but it works.

I’ve taken the time to look through a few of the videos, the one that stood out the most was an interview with Hill Harper, where he discusses the importance of The Conversation. He noted that the world is too involved with technology and no one talks anymore, except through Facebook email and twitter. What he does is he has a get together with friends/family, each of them bring a few cards with different questions on them, they’re pulled together and anonymously the questions are asked for members of the opposite sex to answer them. As an example, mine would probably be something along the lines of “Why do men hold onto underwear when it looks like a skirt and the elastic is holding on with a piece of string?”, this question would be answered truthfully by the men in the group. I’m sure it would bring up a heated discussion, but at the same time – you’re TALKING, it’s not a Facebook thread going back and forth, you’re actually looking at the person in which you’re talking to.

All in all it’s a pretty decent site, lots of tips and tricks, the video’s give you an “ah ha” kind of an effect after words as well, and after watching “The Conversation”, I think I’m going to have to put one of these parties together. I went ahead and marked like on their Facebook page as well.

What questions would you ask?