Thought I'd share a couple short anecdotes from the last little while, give you guys some entertainment.

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I was at work the other day, finished up at a job site around 2:15 and was getting ready to head to the next site. My co-worker started getting angry texts from his fiancée, so he calls her to figure out what's going on. That's when I hear, "Who the hell is Carla?" He has no clue what she's talking about, and she proceeds to spend the next 45 straight minutes bitching him out over who he's liking and following on Instagram. Apparently this Carla woman followed him there, so fiancée decided that he clearly must be cheating. He wasn't, of course, but she wasn't about to let facts or reality get in the way of her being indignant. He had no clue who "Carla" was, had never even heard of her.

Here's the bit that really drives home how stupid this situation is. This guy works 6 days a week, 10 - 12 hours per day doing difficult and dangerous manual labor in unbearable weather, despite having back and neck problems from his army days. He's the sole breadwinner for their household, supporting himself, the fiancée, and their two kids. And she calls him at work to give him grief over liking some photos on Instagram. And this guy puts up with it, and at the end of the day says, "Time to go home and resolve that situation now...."

There's just no reason why a guy who works as hard as he does, should have to put up with that shit. Yet he, and so many other men, do. It boggles my mind.

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My best friend has been living with his fiancée for about 6 or 7 years now. Their place is probably about 750 square feet, really not much. He asked me to help him move some furniture a couple weeks ago, which led to us cleaning out his garage to make room for things. All the stuff that was his, we either went through to reorganize it or we threw it away. Made a ton of room, his garage hasn't looked like that since he moved in.

However, an entire wall of the garage was basically completely untouchable. It wasn't his stuff, it was hers. All sorts of useless random crap, much of it filthy, and he had absolutely no say in whether or not they could or should keep it, because if he so much as opened his mouth about that, she'll get angry and he can't deal with her when she's angry, so she always gets her way. I mentioned that if he set up a pegboard in the garage, that would free up some space that he's currently using to keep tools, but she won't let him put one up because she doesn't like the idea.

Their second bedroom was the same thing, a (relatively) clean space for his desk and pc, then the rest of the room was literally stacked up to the ceiling with her crap. I've seen rental storage units with less crap in them than this bedroom, that's how bad it was. Add onto that the fact that he has to live with her buying tons of animals to keep in cages in their dining room, so you have to squeeze by them all to get in or out of the kitchen, and the place just feels like a mess, no matter what you do.

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All of that is just to say this: By going your own way, you get to live life on your terms. By going your own way and not cohabitating, you don't have to dance around all the stupid, useless crap that somebody else "needs" to keep in the house, or worry about them getting mad when you admit that they are, in fact, inconveniencing you a little bit and you'd rather they don't.

'Freedom' isn't so much about getting away from something, so much as going toward something. Sure, by going your own way you do get 'freedom from' all the nonsense that comes with relationships, etc. But don't overlook what you get 'freedom to.' Freedom to have a workbench in the garage, freedom to throw out that useless piece of shit that you've been neglecting in the corner for years, freedom to change your furniture or tableware if you feel like it, freedom to take a few days to go stay somewhere and get away from the day-to-day without worrying about the ball-and-chain.

Just the advice of a random guy you don't know, but keep an eye on the 'freedom to' more so than the 'freedom from.'