New Year, New Love: What I Gave Up For Love In 2018

Happy New Year!!!!

I know that everyone probably says this, but I seriously can’t believe it’s 2019. Last year went by entirely too fast. If you’re my friend on Instagram then you know the kind of journey I went through last year. It was definitely a year for the books! I leveled up in the influencer space, I traveled more, I built more genuine relationships and I fell in love! WHEWWW CHILE.

NeW year, neW love

What I Gave Up For Love

YES. I, Yvette Corinne, fell in love. After 5 years of being single. And I wasn’t just single, I was single single. Like if I was on the side of the road with a flat tire, I had no one reliable to call and help me. Therefore, I was SINGLE SINGLE. I was still dating here and there, but I was in what my generation likes to call “situationships.” To be honest, situationships might be worse than not dating at all, because they can really confuse and distract you from something better. That was my first mistake in dating after college. I found myself in a lot of situationships. *Before I get into this, I want to say I’m no dating expert and everything that works for me might not work for you.* I want to share with you guys what truly helped me last year.

What I Gave Up For Love

I prayed. I prayed long and hard for a change. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to do this. I’m very stubborn, it’s the Capricorn in me, so I was not up for change. Throughout my dating history, I’ve been sticking to one recipe (that obviously wasn’t working, but you couldn’t tell me that.) Now, I’m 28 and I finally realized that some thing has to change. Oh, but I made a drastic change. Let me give you a little backstory. I met my current boyfriend in 2017. He was just a friend. I was actually dating someone else, so I had zero feelings for him. While we were just friends he did so much for me. He would give me advice, send me sermons here and there, take me out for lunch, just a really sweet, thoughtful guy. He’s the kind of guy that would help me if I had a flat tire. Very dependable. But I actually didn’t look at him as someone I would date, because he wasn’t my “type.” I ain’t got no type. Then one day, my current situationship wasn’t going anywhere. We were still in the dating stage. It was almost a year and I didn’t feel like he fed my soul the way it needed to be fed. So I sat down one night and prayed a good prayer. I don’t know the exact words of my prayer, but I can tell you what I asked for. I asked the Lord to give me the strength to leave my current situation if it is not good for me anymore, open my eyes to what’s right in front of me, help me change my relationship habits, grow stronger in the word, and use the word to guide me through my next relationship. After I prayed, I texted my just a friend friend. We realized in that month that we actually liked each other more than just friends. So I asked my friend, which is now my boyfriend, do you want to give us a shot because I think I’m ready!

I left out a major detail in that story. I knew before asking my friend turned boyfriend if he was ready to give us a shot, that he was celibate. That was actually one of the reasons why I thought I couldn’t be with him. I wasn’t trying to live that life. After I prayed, I decided that he was the guy that was right in my face the whole time and I needed to give it a chance. If that means I can’t have sex, then by all means I’m giving up sex. Yes guys! I gave up sex to find true love and it is one of the best things I could have ever done. It’s been 8 months since we’ve been on this journey and never in a million years could I have imagined a relationship like the one we have. A big component of my past situationships that I wanted to change was giving myself to someone who wasn’t planning on marrying me. When you let someone into your body that way, someone who has no intentions on being with you, you can get blinded by the sex. You now have this soul tie with this person that may seem like y’all are in love when in all actuality y’all are just in lust. I didn’t want that for myself anymore.

Being celibate has helped me see clearer and build a true emotional relationship with my partner. The most important thing that celibacy helped me with is growing my relationship in the word and building a foundation rooted in Christ. It’s so beautiful! Majority of my 2018 I can honestly say I’ve changed as a person, with the help of my partner. He helps guide me spiritually, helps me with my influencer/blogger work and continues to lift me up when I’m down. I never felt a love like I do with my boyfriend and it’s just year 1. This is the most intentional relationship I’ve ever been in and giving up sex has helped me see clearer.

I’m going to write a blog post next week about being celibate, because I want to elaborate on it more without this post being too long. I just want you guys to know it was one of the best decisions of my life! If you were thinking about it before, pray about it first and give it a try. It’s not easy, but it’s definitely worth it!

XO,

Yvette Corinne