I had asked God for direction. The problem was...I didn't really like the direction I got.
At the end of Part 2, I was driving on a beautiful sunny day when everything got quiet.
And into that quiet came a thought that felt simple and clear:
You need to end this relationship.
There it was.
The answer I had been looking for.
Except...
it was NOT the answer I wanted. 😬
Because I really liked Carl.
Actually, I didn't just like him.
I really, really wanted this relationship to work.
I was excited about being with him. There were so many things about Carl that seemed to line up with what I had been looking for.
We shared similar values.
Our faith was important to both of us.
We had fun together.
I admired a lot about him.
And I still had that earlier impression sitting in the back of my mind:
He's on your wavelength.
So now I had two things that seemed completely contradictory.
He's on your wavelength.
And:
You need to end this relationship.
Wait.
WHAT?
How could both of those things possibly be true?
I didn't understand.
And because I didn't understand...
I started trying to explain the second one away.
Surely I Was Just Overthinking
Maybe I was nervous because this was becoming a real relationship.
Maybe I was focusing too much on little things.
Maybe I had unrealistic expectations.
Maybe relationships were supposed to require some adjustment.
Maybe I needed to stop looking for reasons something wouldn't work and actually give a good guy a chance.
And Carl WAS a good guy in a lot of ways.
That's what kept tripping me up.
He wasn't walking around wearing a giant sign that said:
ALAINA, THIS RELATIONSHIP IS NOT FOR YOU.
That would have been helpful. 😂
Instead, there were a lot of things that looked right.
He served at the temple.
He had strong standards.
He was involved at church.
He was social and well-liked.
He liked being active and trying new things.
He could be thoughtful and helpful.
We could have really fun dates together.
There were moments when I genuinely loved being his girlfriend.
So I kept coming back to the same thought:
Look at all the good.
Why would I need to end something that has this much good in it?
And rather than asking why I had received such a clear impression to leave...
I started building a case for why I should stay.
The Hmm...Interesting File Was Growing
Meanwhile, the little moments hadn't stopped.
There was the dishwasher.
There was Spanish.
And then there were more tiny interactions that made me pause for half a second and think:
Hmm...interesting. 🤔
Carl liked to correct things.
Sometimes it was how I did something.
Sometimes it was something I said.
And the complicated part was that a lot of the time...
he was technically right.
Like the time Carl stopped me in the middle of a story because of how I pronounced windowsill.
Yes.
Windowsill. 😂
And yes, he was technically right.
But there was a little more to that interaction than one mispronounced word.
[MINI STORY LINK: Apparently, I've Been Saying “Windowsill” Wrong →]
At the time?
Another tiny moment.
Another:
Hmm...interesting. 🤔
And then I moved on.
Because what was I supposed to say?
My boyfriend correctly explained windowsill to me, so obviously this relationship is doomed? 😂
No.
It seemed way too small.
And that's what made these moments so easy to dismiss.
Maybe This Was Just Growth
I also had another really convenient explanation for a lot of Carl's corrections:
I like learning.
I genuinely do.
Give me books, mentors, classes, advice, someone else's hard-earned wisdom—I am THERE. 😂
So if Carl knew a better way to do something, part of me thought:
Why wouldn't I want to know?
Maybe this was good.
Maybe we were helping each other grow.
But I also started noticing that Carl and I approached learning and growth very differently.
At first, I thought it was simply:
Different learning styles.
Nothing wrong with that.
Except eventually, I realized those differences were showing up in our relationship in ways I hadn't expected.
[MINI STORY LINK: Different Learning Styles...It Showed Up in More Than I Realized →]
But I wasn't connecting those dots yet.
To me, these were still individual moments.
Dishwasher.
Spanish.
Windowsill.
Learning styles.
Hmm...interesting.
File closed. 😂
I Really Wanted Him to Fit
The truth was, I didn't want to discover reasons Carl and I weren't compatible.
I wanted to discover more reasons we were.
I wanted him to fit into my life.
I wanted him to fit with my family.
I wanted all those shared values to mean we were headed toward the same kind of future.
And when you really want something to work...
you can become surprisingly creative at explaining away the things that don't quite fit.
My family was especially important to me, so I really wanted Carl to connect with them.
Sometimes, though, I noticed that he didn't engage very much unless I was nearby.
Nothing huge.
Just...
Hmm...interesting.
And then there was an incident involving my mom, Carl, and...
ranch dressing.
Yes.
Ranch. 😂
My mom went out of her way to do something specifically for Carl, and somehow it became another one of those little moments I remembered later.
[MINI STORY LINK: My Mom Made Him His OWN Ranch...and It Still Went Wrong →]
At the time, I wasn't analyzing what ranch dressing said about my relationship.
Obviously. 😂
I was just collecting little moments I didn't quite know what to do with.
And because none of them seemed big enough on their own...
I kept moving forward.
I Almost Prayed Against the Answer
This is probably the part of this relationship that stands out to me the most looking back.
Because after that thought—
You need to end this relationship.
—I kept praying.
But if I'm being completely truthful about what was happening...
I was almost praying against the answer I had already received.
I wanted to be with Carl SO badly.
So instead of simply asking God:
What are You trying to tell me?
I started telling Him why I thought this relationship was good.
But look at Carl's values.
Look at his faith.
Look at everything we have in common.
Look at all the good things about him.
Look at how much I like him.
And underneath all of it was basically:
Are You sure?
Because I didn't want the answer to be no.
I wanted God to see what I was seeing.
Which is kind of funny to write now.
Because...
He's God. 😂
He wasn't missing information.
I was.
I could see what was happening right in front of me.
I could see the dates.
The flowers.
The shared faith.
The things we had in common.
The fun.
The potential.
I could see all the reasons I thought Carl might be right for me.
But God could see a much, much bigger picture than I could.
And at the time, I didn't understand that.
I thought if something was good, then surely it should be right.
If Carl had good qualities...
if we shared important values...
if I genuinely cared about him...
then why would I need to walk away?
So I kept trying to make sense of it.
And I kept going back to that first impression:
He's on your wavelength.
That was the part I couldn't get past.
If I had felt that so clearly...
then surely that meant something too.
Right?
I Wanted a Different Answer
The more I prayed, the more I realized something uncomfortable.
I wasn't really looking for direction anymore.
I was looking for permission.
Permission to stay.
Permission to keep trying.
Permission to believe that all the good things I saw meant this relationship could become what I hoped it would become.
I wanted peace...
but specifically the kind of peace that ended with:
Yes, Alaina. Stay with Carl.
Anything else?
I wasn't particularly interested. 😬😂
So I kept looking at the relationship.
I kept looking at Carl.
I kept looking at everything that seemed right.
And every time something didn't quite fit, I found another explanation.
He's technically right.
We're just different.
Relationships take work.
I'm probably overthinking.
Look at all the good.
He's on my wavelength.
And for a while...
those explanations were enough to keep me there.
Because I still hadn't figured out something that would take me much longer to understand:
Maybe “He's on your wavelength” didn't mean what I thought it meant.
Maybe sharing values, faith, goals, interests, and a desire to grow really DID mean we were on the same wavelength.
But maybe...
that wasn't the whole picture.
I couldn't see that yet.
All I knew was that I really wanted Carl to be my person.
And eventually, I became convinced that maybe...
he was.
That belief was about to make everything a whole lot more confusing.
I had convinced myself there were enough good reasons to stay. But the longer I stayed, the more something else started happening: little by little, I wasn't quite acting like myself anymore.
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