I will be the first to admit that I am a hopeless romantic. I believe in love and I celebrate it. I thought I found love during my last relationship but somewhere in the middle of it, I realized I was repeating the mistakes of my failed marriage. I started to feel like I was unable to be my authentic self, so I started to hide the parts of me that my partner didn’t like or accept. If I was upset by something that my partner did to me or said to me, I would shut down and be quiet instead of expressing my feelings. I thought if I spoke up, it would cause a bigger problem. That became my experience in the relationship. I was always taking the blame for everything that went wrong in my relationship. I kept trying to change myself to fit into the mold my partner had for me. These are all things that I did in my failed marriage over and over again. I have come to realize that I need to break these cycles that I get myself into. A healthy relationship is about compromise, communication and ownership from both people. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am far from ready to date again. I am taking the time to analyze myself to figure out why I keep repeating these cycles in relationships, so I can break them. If you ever want to have the relationship you deserve, you have to break the unhealthy cycles.