What's Your Expiration Date?

This question came about while watching Love and Hip Hop; Tierra Mari posed this question to Chrissy and Emily while discussing their long relationships with their boyfriends. I posed this question to a couple of my friends and they went to heavy thought about when is the expiration date of a relationship without full commitment…marriage.

Now I have thought about this plenty of times before matter of fact for every relationship I get myself into I have a date in my head for how long I’m going to continue this before I call it all off. Wrong?!?! It might be but one thing I was taught growing up was never give a man all you got and in returns he doesn’t return the favor. I refuse to spend the next 10 years of my life being with a man who never loves me enough or cares enough to make me his wife. I watch my Aunt be with a man for over 15 years and never got a full commitment out of him, she has his babies, kept his house up and did everything that a wife does without the ring and one day he woke up and left…and 2 year later he marries someone else. Yep, that will never be me…ever because Sunshine has an expiration date. I love Lil Richmond with all my heart but I can not and will not spend years waiting on a false hope or chasing this hope, don’t want to provide a man with everything a wife is and can be without being that. Lil Richmond spent years with his ex girlfriend, who had his baby they brought a house and he did gave her a ring because he felt like he had no other choice, truth be told he said he had no plans to marry her and clearly he didn’t. I know that I could be ending something great by putting an expiration date on our relationship but maybe that is what it needs. Maybe you have to walk away from something to see how real it is. But if it was real than that expiration date will never come. I never really talk about the expiration date I have placed on Lil Richmond and I but believe me it is there…I’m not getting no younger and don’t have time to invest everything into him and return with nothing but what I walked in with.

Don’t get me wrong I will hold you down and I do that but I draw my line. We will not be playing house without our house being sealed with a commitment. My grandmother use to tell me all the time never give a man the milk for free because he will never buy the cow and I strongly believe that. I have friends who have been in their relationships for years, had babies, brought houses and now they are like…what’s next? I’m not knocking anyone for doing these things but when do you say I want more, when do you say or figure out that all this time should be marked with more. I also don’t believe in putting the press on a man to get him to marry you. The one thing I can’t stand is to see a woman give a man ultimatum on marriage, you should never have to plead your case and make threats to be his wife. I watched Chrissy do this week after week with Jim Jones and it bothered me to the end of no return, I never want a ring because you feel like it something you have to do but rather he loves me so much that he can’t be without. The marriage press will only get you the ring but it will come with plenty resentment. And lawd knows when a wedding will ever happen. As women we love hard and strong but you have to have an expiration date before you spend the rest of your life chasing a false hope. So I say put an expiration date on it so I know its r