When I decided to go on a dating site to find someone to have fun times with, I didn't know I would find my boyfriend. We met for one date and, to this day, he can't stop telling the story about the impromptu kiss I planted on him. From that night we decided we should take it slow, but that ended up not being the case at all.
My life at home was very complicated and I was in a bad place. My sister basically controlled my mother and stepfather, and I was the only one who would stand up to her. It was for this reason that one night my mother got a bit aggressive with me and told me to leave if I didn't like how it was going to be around there. I cried and begged her to stop, but there were things said that I'd rather not repeat. It led to me making a difficult decision that left permanent scars. Every time I look at them I'll remember that night and the change that my boyfriend made.
I called him crying because I couldn't get the blood to stop, and he drove right over. We packed some of my things and wrapped my leg in a towel. I could barely speak and all he could do was try to comfort me as he drove quickly to his house. Once there he took care of me and we stopped the bleeding. Sitting in his room we sat in silence until I was able to tell him what happened. When I was finished he looked at me and told me he loved me. We hadn't said it before and had only been together for three months, but I knew I loved him too, so I said it back. I will never know how that first 'I love you' would have gone if I hadn't gone through that. Would I have said it first? Would we have said it at all? I won't ever know.
The next day his parents told me it wouldn't be right for them to let me go back there, and said I could live with them until I figured something out. That was over a year ago now, and so much has happened since then. My relationship with my boyfriend was on overdrive. We slept in the same room, we spent all our free time together, his dad and I started to carpool to work, and sometimes I even drove his brother to school. In this past year, we have gone through times of depression (on both our parts), death of loved ones, complicated legal issues, financial burdens, and family spats. It was like we were already a married couple dealing with a lifetime of issues. He and I talked recently about it, and agreed that the night he saved my life was also the night that made everything a thousand times more complicated.
My advice is to let your relationship have some time to breathe. Don't be around each other all day, every day. Don't move in together when you're not ready, even if you need to live somewhere – find a friend. Don't start planning your future in the first year; it's scary for everyone involved. Don't ever give a hall pass – it will be the biggest mistake, and you'll regret it forever. They do nothing but give a sense of insecurity. My biggest piece of advice if you're in a fast-starting relationship: don't get too attached to the family. His family saved my life, taught me that families aren't always like mine, that they can be loving and understanding, and they have cared for me more than anyone I've ever known. I've grown to love them as my own, so if this fails, I won't just be crying over the loss of a boyfriend, I'll be crying over the loss of a family.
The first year of a relationship is like a trial; a way of seeing how well you do together under stress and overcoming small obstacles. My first year was one huge hit after the other, and it's making my relationship even harder to fix now. We are trying to make it work, but it's far from easy. No relationship is going to stay in the honeymoon phase forever, so make sure you're prepared to pay for your speedy relationship. I will never regret my relationship, and I'm hoping we work everything out. However, if it doesn't, I'll still know that my relationship meant something, even if it did start relatively fast.
