Okay, I’m officially drawing a line.

There is a very big line between what actually exists in reality, the voices in our heads & the red flags we seem to attribute to various occurrences in our relationships.

I can’t tell you how many times my friends have come to me asking if something is a red flag. My answer is always “it depends”. I’m not really sure how I can answer that for someone because I’m not involved in the day-to-day happenings, emotions and exchanges that occur between the couple. Primarily, I have no idea what kind of foundation someone has built in their relationship and perhaps a significant other speaking with an ex would be  major problem for some – where the foundation is less than solid and built up on some ply wood, while others have built a strong foundation and even lacquered the floors!

It’s amazing how many problems can be caused by well-intentioned friends offering well-intentioned advice. But the truth is that they can’t possibly know what they’re offering advice on. They aren’t you. You can’t take someone else’s problems, issues, and experiences and apply them universally across all situations. Life doesn’t work that way and most of the time the best way to work out issues or doubts that come up in a relationship is to just discuss them with your significant other.

No one else can know your relationship, how strong it is, how many insecurities you’ve formed because of it, and possibly how crazy it makes you every single day that you’re in it. Maybe it doesn’t make you crazy at all. Maybe your significant other has done absolutely nothing to make you not trust them but you’re projecting insecurities from the past onto your current relationship. If this is you. Stop. Like right now. And go apologize to your significant other for projecting your personal problems onto them.

We all have junk in our past to look back on… some more than others but generally speaking, if we wanted to bring in past problems into new relationships, we could all do a good job of scaring people away quite quickly. But that’s not what new relationships are for. It’s not about your past. It’s about trying to build a new future.. possibly together. Why would you want to take away from that by involving your past? Might as well invite your ex to next sleepover party you have. Sound crazy, doesn’t it? Well that’s what you’re doing if you’re bringing issues from the past into your new relationship.

The only thing you should be concerned about is finding new ways to amaze, excite and love your significant other every change you get.

P.S. You get bonus points if you can find all the apartment hunting related analogies in this post.