Caregiver

You're the caregiver! Jung identified this archetype in many goddesses and female role models throughout history. You're the mother figure: the selfless caregiver and helper. Everyone comes to you for advice. You truly love others as yourself and your greatest fear is selfishness and ingratitude. You manifest compassion and generosity. A Jungian psychologist would tell you to be careful not to be taken advantage of and never let yourself play the martyr.

This is what a quiz said about me....
and its true.

I've been talking to some folks about this whole dating thing and I've realized some things about myself.

I take care of people.
Its what I do.
When I tell people how I took care of my ex, they're always astounded....both that I did all that stuff and that she didn't want to be with me.
But its who I am.

I want to take care of you.
And I've realized that its by taking care of people, that I fall for them.
Its the fact that they need me that I'm drawn to.
And I think its part of why I'm not terribly romantically interested in the girl I'm currently dating.

I started to recognize that this could happen in one of my good friendships.
She loves to be taken care of.
She loves to be catered to.
She loves my cooking.
And I'm a caretaker.

Let me tell you what started happening.
So she's been off her game with studying all year. I've felt like I've literally been dragging her through 2nd year at times and told her as much. I actually almost ended our friendship because of her attitude towards schoolwork and she was really hurt. Way more hurt than she thought she'd be actually and she's been trying really hard to do better.
So I started cooking so she'd come over and study.
And then that became "So you cooked right?"
Then it was "can I borrow some sweats when I get there?"
And soon I was like........ I spy a pattern.

In quite a few ways she's like my ex except that she's straight. Like in a committed relationship with a dude straight. And no, I don't have romantic feelings for her but I know I could develop them if this whole "me being your girlfriend" thing continued.
And by being her girlfriend I mean cooking for you, pestering you about your school work, studying with you, encouraging you....alladat!

Those are all the things I did for my ex and then they just blossomed like a brain contusion ( yes that's what I was just studying.)

So anyway, I actually talking to this friend about this and she understands. She knows who I am, who I was with my ex, and that this is my weakness so she's letting those regular meals go.

What really started to happen in its simplest for is I was being her girlfriend but she wasn't being mine and that's something I can't have. I can't be crossing boundaries that for me feel like more than friendship if that's not a mutual decision ever again. And I can't cross them with you and have you pretend you didn't know what was happening though you were a willing participant.

I do however want my future relationship to kind of grow like that. I want it to be a friendship that just gradually becomes more. That's what I had with my ex and I think that's what feels most authentic to me.

And just in case y'all wanted a list of things I have actually done for my ex.... here's a dat in the life.

Get up with her (despite having no where to be myself) to make her breakfast including homemade muffins baked fresh daily
Pack her a nutritious lunch that wasn't left overs from the previous night (I don't do leftovers for bae's lunch)
Clean the house including deep cleaning stains out of the carpet
Cleaned her bathroom
Sorted and did her laundry
Folded her laundry and put it away
Grocery shopped with my money for her kitchen
Ran her bath water so that it was hot by the time she got upstairs from getting home for work
Laid out her lounge clothes for after her shower
Made dinner, from scratch (yes, that's three meals I made her each day)
Made a few different home made desserts every week

And that list is just the stuff I considered regular stuff to do for her. That doesn't include planning elaborate trips or birthday gifts or anything of the sort. This was just my average, regular run of the mill day because I wanted all her time at home to be quality time spent together. I didn't need to watch her do laundry when I could have already done it. So yea, I was the ultimate housewife to my ex. Nevertheless, she's not mine.

But I think for me to love you, I have to feel like you need me. Not in a way that sacrifices who I am, but I need to feel needed to fall for you.