Grand Rapids Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Thursday randoms
GRSP, Willa's boyfriend story is pretty cute.
Here's my story and take from it whatever moral you can:
My parents hated L when he and I were first dating (mostly b/c he was 21 and I was 16--looking back I can't blame them really), but I was so motivated to prove to my parents that they were wrong about us, it made me much more committed to the relationship than I think I would have been otherwise. It worked out for he and I, but I still wonder what would have happened if we hadn't felt like it was us against the world from the very beginning.
I had a similar experience when B and I started dating, Diana. Except we were 16 and 19. And my parents didn't hate him, they were just extremely wary of him and his intentions. But I think we had a similar mentality to a large degree.
I think with my parents it started out as wariness about L's intentions, but turned to very intense dislike when the relationship became quite serious rather quickly.
L unfortunately got blamed for a lot of things that were probably more my responsibility than his (like my expectations for curfews and disagreements with my parents over what constituted acceptable activities for a 16 year old). I also unintentionally used him as the impetus for my teenage rebellion.
Interestingly, I began keeping journals after my first date with L and it is so striking to read over them now. Keeping in my mind how very young 16 is, it's just incredible how insightful I was about my feelings and how there was always this sense that what we had was special and different somehow. The difficulty I had in processing all of that really comes through in the writing. Still, I think what *really* has gotten us through our most difficult times was the feeling of having already passed through fire together and ironically, my parents' disapproval was the main source of that.
Interesting, Diana. I think we've talked about this before, but I had a lot of similar experiences and feelings.
Hee hee... Guys. She's 5.
But reminiscing is fun!
It's difficult working with people who have advanced degrees in winning arguements, essentially. I just got schooled in a "negotiation" that I didn't even realize was a negotiation until we came to an agreement and he said "good negotiating with you."
And then I realized that he completely won and I got nothing. Damn it.
But she'll be sixteen before you know it
Is this like losing an argument when you think it's a draw
I had a negotiations prof in undergrad who used to constantly tell us that everything is negotiable.
And those negotiations where one party gets everything and the other gets nothing happen constantly in my house. I'm the loser. It's going to be great when I'm professionally trained to win. Or I'll get divorced.
I wish it were a draw! But no... I lost.
The negotiation power shift in your house is going to be interesting!
Sush.
The thing about negotiation power in my house is first of all not that I'm unaware that I'm conceding everything, more that conceding is easier than continuing negotiation. L is extremely stubborn and declares victory by declaring victory. Very annoying.
My training will either make me less tolerant of his obnoxious tactics or better at sneakily working around them. So far, it seems to be more of the former. Last weekend he brought up some fighting words that I though were unfair and my response was to forcefully say that I wasn't going to tolerate that and there will be serious consequences for our relationship if he continues down that path. Looking back, I think it was a really extreme reaction, but my tolerance for bullsh*t is at zero right now. I simply don't have the time or the energy for dealing with it. He seemed to get the message.
Good!