What Is The Stage After The Honeymoon Period?

If we always leave couples at the happily ever after, it's no wonder we believe the honeymoon period is perpetual. I've discovered the stage after

Hey little lovebugs,

Life has been so lovely and kind to me this year and I wanted to start my love letter to you on that positive note because I always notice when life isn’t going my way so I’m intentionally putting some love and gratitude into the universe! It’s funny how your mentality can change what happened to you so easily. I mean, someone tried to mug me yesterday and all I could think was thank god they failed! I’m even bogged down in a cold but that’s not going to stop me celebrating my wins, my main one being that I sent off my fifth book proposal yesterday! Eeekk… and now we wait!

This week, I am sharing with you:

• All about my fifth book!

• Why you need to learn to validate your own experiences

• What the stage after the honeymoon stage is + why we need to talk about it

• A book review of a book on the mother wound

• A stern word (some might call it a rant!) on toxic positivity

• A life hack that I use to get better at my worst love language (which of course is my partner’s top one!)

• How to stop seeing missed goals as a failure

• A TV show you have to watch

My Fifth Book in the making

I’ve always been really bad at keeping secrets. The idea with keeping books a secret is that it helps build hype and that it’s annoying for your readers to know you are writing a book and then have to wait months or even years for it. The thing is though, I’m an author. You can always expect me to be writing a book or at least attempting to. The proposal for Book 5 has been the hardest one by far and it has taken me over a year to send it out when it usually takes me a month. A large reason why was because the subject of the book was Friendship Breakups and well… the first sentence of my book proposal is ‘I don’t know if I am healed enough to write this book’. Then I started thinking it actually is a book that needs a bit more time. Then my literary agent left and I went into a three month termination clause and then I got covid and all in all, it seemed like the universe was sending me a strong message that it was not the right time. And yet, I kept coming back to it! I truly believe if you are meant to do something, your brain will not let the idea go. I think because it’s a conversation that needs to be had, even if it’s done imperfectly. All my books have been the best they can be but I think I’ve accepted this book will be a ‘figuring it out’ book and I might figure it out along the process, but I might not and at the very least, I’ll be starting a conversation that someone else can run with. That’s if I get the book deal! Time will tell…

Validate, validate and validate yourself!

I think one of the many reasons I feel good right now is my health (minus this cold). If you follow me on Instagram stories, you might have seen I have started Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) and more specifically Progesterone and Testosterone and it’s made the world of difference. It is actually so validating to know everything I was feeling wasn’t in my head! When you get used to a certain state, it’s really easy to convince yourself that it is your normal and there wasn’t a time where you felt better but please always remember, you are an expert in your own body. You are the ONLY expert in your body and you are the only person who can communicate what you are actually feeling. If people don’t listen to you when you say something it is wrong, scream it from the rooftops and keep searching for someone who will listen. Also keep them boundaries! Your medical record, your business. I was reminded of this watching Real Housewives of Beverley Hills when one woman kept pestering another woman about her oesophagus and thinking she had a right to because she was a medical practitioner. If they aren’t YOUR doctor, they don’t deserve an explanation! In terms of the actual HRT, if you would be interested to know more, let me know in the comments and I can share how it’s been for the last month.

Differentiation: The Stage After The Honeymoon Stage

I remember this time last year, my boyfriend and I had officially moved in after basically having already done it for months and we were bickering a lot over household chores and it made me think ‘is this the honeymoon stage ending?’. I don’t know how I feel about the phrase ‘Honeymoon stage’ at all - I think it’s too all or nothing - but I do think the beginning is when things are a little easier. I remember googling it at the time and came across the next stage being called ‘The Power Struggle’ and it never resonated with me. A struggle for power is quite an ego-based issue and I guess it could happen if one person or both are too proud to admit they are ever wrong but this isn’t really in my dynamic. Instead, recently, I heard someone call it ‘differentiation’ and that struck a nerve! In the beginning when all you want to do is be with each other 24/7, I remember worrying what the line was between it being healthy and what was codependence. In fact, what I’ve realised is when you are bonding and it’s new, you are wanting to learn anything and everything about each other. When you are living together, cemented as a couple and secure in the relationship though, in order for both people to really thrive, your independence needs to come back too. I’ve definitely been feeling this lately where I’m getting less cravings for closeness and more cravings for wanting to be my own person and I’m loving it! I think for me this is more comfortable than the honeymoon phase because I’m a person who prides themselves on their independence so much that the honeymoon phase always felt a little too good to be true, like the other shoe was going to drop at any moment. It’s ironic but now, even with the increase in disagreements and the mundanity of living together, it feels safer because it feels more real

The Inner Mother by Bethany Webster

Shortly before Christmas, I went through my camera roll and did the mundane task of transferring all my photos onto a hard drive because I kept getting that annoying ‘you’ve run out of space’ reminder. It now happens yearly thanks to the fact video content is all the rage and no one wants photos anymore. Whilst I was doing this, I also actually made a note of all the books I screenshotted over the year whenever I saw an interesting one. It means I don’t know who recommended it but the title resonated it and ordered for one of my Christmas reads that I finished on the plane home. I have looked into The Mother Wound a lot and have done some work around it especially in relation to the inner child so some of the content’s of the book I already knew but what really made me think is how it all correlates to the patriarchy. I’m a big believer that everyone plays a role in a family dynamic and sometimes, the mother can get the most stick for a bad childhood, even if the men around her contributed just as much to the toxic home environment. Every family dynamic is different but more and more, I see especially with daughters, the coping mechanism is to blame it all on the woman and put fathers on a pedestal to eradicate their contribution in the chaos. This is a generalisation and an idea I want to flesh out but as soon as I read that the patriarchy had a part to play, it made sense. After all, even healthy, nurturing and loving mothers are held to a higher standard than fathers. If you have never heard of The Mother Wound or have heard about it but want to learn more, this is the perfect starter book for you to dig into your own beliefs about what makes a good woman.

Are You Complaining To Death?

I just saw an obituary online which read ‘never complained and’… actually I don’t remember what it said after that because I stopped reading at the first three words. Maybe it’s the fact I’ve had 15 surgeries and I complained all the way through them or maybe it’s the fact, many of the surgeries were life threatening and if I had died after any of those them, I would have not regretted my complaints but something about that being the first two words of an obituary made me roll my eyes. This is some toxic positivity bullshit. If you are dying, you are allowed to complain. No person is completely positive all the time and if they are, they are suppressing their true emotions either because they are too scared to access them, or they are accessing them but then disguising it publicly in order to appear more socially acceptable. I’m so bored of using positivity as a compliment and I’m equally bored of people placing pressure on ill and dying people to remain positive. I understand the importance of positivity but when your illness lasts more than a week, you will have the full range of emotions like any other human living any other healthy week. You are allowed to have all your feelings and I am truly of the belief that it is healthier for you to give yourself permission to feel how you authentically feel than to be in denial, perform positivity and pretend you are fine when you aren’t. I guess you can write ‘complained to death’ on my tombstone (don’t actually pls)

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A solution for people who suck at presents (me!)

I am writing this now because I am only just recovered from the emotional toll that Christmas presents took on my spirit. I am assuming it is greater than it was for others because I am a grinch but please tell me I can’t be the only one! It is my worst love language. I both don’t care for receiving gifts and understandably, therefore don’t care about giving gifts. The only problem is I have a partner who’s top love language is gifts (I don’t actually know this, but I have been with him for 3 years so I’ve given myself permission to make this assumption since he won’t do the actual quiz). Having a partner also means double as many people to buy presents for because you have both families and whilst he, of course, did help, I decided I can’t do this for another year. Next year, I am going to try my hardest to convince everyone into a Secret Santa which will mean only one present will need to be bought, but failing that, I am writing a person specific present list right now in January. In fact, it’s already started. No more last minute panic for me and this will also double as ideas for birthdays too! So if you suck at presents, allow me to share this life hack. Anytime you see something that you think someone you love might like, DO NOT BUY IT (this is what I used to do), write it down instead. Or do buy it, but put it in a cupboard somewhere. And to give myself a little credit, it’s not like I never buy people presents, I just like doing it when the mood strikes or I see something actually meaningful, not when the world forces me to on an arbitrary date (yes, Christmas is arbitrary. Not sorry!)

Feedback Not Failure

Let’s be real, most people have failed their new year’s resolution. Statistically just under half have given up by the end of January but that’s because they don’t realise the resolution is for ALL YEAR which means if you miss a day or don’t reach your goal one week, you try again. The other day I wore my gym kit all day from 6 am until 9pm until I finally admitted defeat and changed into pyjamas. I could see it as failure but first of all, I hadn’t even failed - my goal is to get back to working out three times a week and it was only a Monday that I didn’t go so there was still time to achieve it before the week was up - but also I learned from it. That’s the feedback part! I changed into pyjamas and whilst getting into bed, I said to my boyfriend ‘I just realised I need to go in the morning because if I wait until it gets dark, I won’t go’. If a goal doesn’t work, figure out why, adapt and do things differently until it’s easy to achieve your goals. Also make your goals realistic. I did not make a goal to workout three times a week as a person who never works out. I made the goal as someone who already works out twice a week and was only adding one additional work out. January 2023 I worked out five times a week and slowly over the year as my health declined, I dropped workouts until I could only keep two times a week consistent. Both of those workouts are with my personal trainer so in actuality, my goal is only to add one workout on my own to my already established routine. A year ago, I was doing three work outs alone and two with my personal trainer a week and I could have made the goal that again but that would be setting myself up for failure. I made it realistic so I could build my routine back up slowly. Just like how it took a whole year to go from 5 workouts a week to 2 workouts a week. I’m going to give myself the same time to go from 2 back to 5! Self awareness is a huge key to achieving goals as well!

Mr Bates VS The Post Office

I’ll put my hands up and admit I’m not the most on-it when it comes to the news but watching this TV show put my jaw on the floor that I’d not even heard anything about it. I didn’t even know what subpostmasters were! It’s about how over 700 (and the number is growing) people who ran their local post office branches were accused of fraud when in fact, it was their technology glitching and the post office made each subpostmaster personally responsible, telling each person it was only them and their failure at using the system and it left so many families bankrupt, their lives ruined and most of it is still not settled in court today with many having gone to prison for crimes they didn’t commit. It might be a TV show but it’s based on a true story and from my constant googling throughout the show, it seems to have stuck to the story pretty closely, if not entirely accurately. I sobbed through most of it and was so saddened by how the legal system has failed them but it’s an important watch! I very rarely say a MUST-WATCH, but this would be one of the times because I’m so disheartened that it took this show to really bring this news to the mainstream.

How are you? How are you REALLY? Let me know in the comments. I’m loving sharing my books and TV shows of the moment in this way, it feels less structured than I previously did it and more flexibitility always works best for me!

Lots of love,

M xx