Can I Trust Myself?

[Kaizen]

This is sort of a placeholder, since I really have to go to bed, but I need to write this somewhere and I figure if I write it here that's a commitment to get back to it at a later date, with help.

My boyfriend, long-distance, is coming to visit tomorrow. Tonight I had a long conversation with my parents about their concerns about him: he doesn't respect me, doesn't value my intelligence, and is patronizing toward me. The thing is, I would not have said any of this, and don't usually feel this way, on my own. But now that they've brought it up, I just spent half an hour going through all the abuse/red flag checklists on the main site. Most of my answers were "of course not", and the others were "my parents say he does".

My parents say I won't listen to them, but I'm not sure what "listening to them" entails. I'm pretty sure they want me to break up with him, and I actually did start thinking about what it would be like to. The problem of course is that I really don't want to, and I couldn't bring myself to break up with him on the sole basis of stuff other people said.

But now I'm feeling sick and can't sleep because what if I am wrong? As my parents pointed out, this is my first serious relationship, and it's been long distance since we started dating (we were together a month and a half in person after we met, starting a relationship just as he graduated). Maybe I'm just not seeing things right. So now I'm dreading him showing up here tomorrow, and questioning my own brain vs my parents' judgment.

I wrote way more than I meant to! I'll try to check this tomorrow, otherwise I may not get back to this until after this visit. (Which I am freaking out about.)

[Redskies]

I think that "listening to them" entails considering, as clear-headedly as you can, whether there's any merit in any of the things they're saying. You may end up agreeing, or agreeing with some of it, or disagreeing with all of it; you aren't required to agree.

I do think this is quite rough timing for you: hearing this the night before he arrives doesn't give you time to process and consider in your own self before he, and he and you together, gets added to the mix. You didn't ask this, but in case you need it: if you felt a bit not-yourself and/or confused about the relationship and were concerned about him picking up on that and what he might think, one way to explain things to him and de-fuse any worry in your head might be to simply say to him that your parents expressed concerns about how good a fit the two of you are, and it surprised you, and obviously it usually doesn't feel good when parents/family aren't enthusiatic about one's relationship. You don't have to share what was said; usually, it's better not to share details of negative things that one's family has said about a partner, because it's just hurtful and achieves nothing. I hope you can find the space you clearly need to figure things out for yourself. Too, it's okay that you don't have your own answers to this immediately; it's very natural to need some time to process and think.

I think perhaps that going straight to imagining a break-up is too much of a leap. Instead, think about if there's any merit in what your parents said about how your boyfriend behaves with you. Then you can figure out where to go from there: what You want to do about what You think.

When people who know us well express concern about something, it's a good idea to consider it. Sometimes, they've noticed something that we haven't yet, or have a clearer picture from the outside than we do right on the inside. Equally, they're not automatically right: they're not us and not living our life. Or yet again, sometimes they may be correctly identifying something that's not quite right, but their conclusions are off-base with some misunderstandings or incorrect assumptions.
Some things to consider and to help you out:

• are your parents generally caring toward you and want the best for you?
• does what your parents think is good for you usually match fairly well what You know to be good, positive and healthy things for you, or not?
• does your parents' image of you mostly match your own? Do you and they - or they and your boyfriend - have any significant differences in your outlooks on life, lifestyles, social/cultural influences?
• when they shared their concerns with you, did they describe specifics which demonstrate the claims they made? ie, what, exactly, in his behaviour, has made them believe he doesn't respect you? If they didn't, finding out why they think these things - with concrete examples - would be very helpful to you in resolving this. If they did, does or has your boyfriend behaved in those ways?
• if he has, do You think that those ways of behaving are respectful and valuing of you, or of any other person?

Of course, we're very happy to talk with you about any of the things your parents say he does, and/or about any behaviours behind that that you've observed, and to help you figure out what you think about it and where you want to go from there.

[Kaizen]

Quick reply to some of the things that stuck out to me (thanks for answering so much quick, it made me feel a lot better to wake up and find that!)

I absolutely agree with your definition of listening to them! I was just unsure about their definition, in this case.

I did ask them to look out for concrete examples this time. The one my mom gave was him patting me on the head (which hadn't bothered me at the time, but, as is the point here, maybe I should have been bothered).
They also said my grandpa remembered him saying he would "change my opinions" about something political. I don't remember this at all, and my boyfriend hasn't tried to change my opinions (they say he said this a year and a half ago). But I've never known my grandpa to lie.
We all agreed they would look for examples this time and let me know.

The other thing that stuck out to me was the part about differences of culture. My parents and boyfriend are on traditionally opposite sides of politics. I'm more in the middle (I'd attribute that more to Internet reading than boyfriend; we rarely talk about politics because in general I don't like talking about it) but I'm not sure my parents know that.

[Kaizen]

I haven't asked my parents for their whole opinion yet, but my mom has said I'm definitely still in the honeymoon stage, since I was acting like a "tour director", like I was the authority on everything. I can't deny that... I was going out of my way to be definite and tell him to do things and express opinions to A) see how he would react, and B) let my parents see how he would react. Apparently I went overboard to the point that it was obvious and annoying. I've apologized.

I did bring up some of the concerns, but I framed them as my own concerns (which they are by now), like, does he expect me to share all of his opinions? Of course not, he said. And he seemed sincere, and I wouldn't be second-guessing it except that I do trust my parents' judgment...

This visit was odd for me. I was so worried the first night that I felt sick, could barely eat, could barely kiss my boyfriend and I went to bed early. After that things were better (until now, when I'm feeling sick again thinking about talking to my parents), but I still felt distant, and I didn't talk about the future at all, which we usually do a little. I think he picked up on that and didn't either. I feel a lot less sure now.

[Mo]

It sounds like maybe you were hyper-aware of everything after talking to your parents about your boyfriend, and that this maybe made it harder to evaluate his behavior. Do I have that right?

In terms of their concrete examples... it seems easy to misremember a conversation from over a year ago, or at least misremember the context. It's possible your boyfriend didn't say or mean "I will change her mind to match my own!" but said something similar, or used a joking tone no one else picked up on, that's been changed a bit by time and memory. Of course, maybe he did say that, I don't know. But that snippet of conversation doesn't strike me as a terrible sign, because it's pretty vague, devoid of context, and not recent.

I'm not sure why patting someone on the head is patronizing by default - I know it can be a dismissive gesture, but head-patting or hair-ruffling is also a pretty common sign of affection. Again, without more context I'm not seeing that as a huge issue. Does it make you feel patronized when he does that? Honestly, if you feel ok with it and he isn't doing it while saying "haha, your silly opinions don't matter" or something similar, I don't think that has to be a sign of an issue.

Maybe you can revisit some of this with him in a couple days when you've had time to process a bit more? If you feel like comments from your parents are just muddling the issue for you, it's ok to say something like "I have heard your worries but for now I want to take some time to think about this on my own, so can you hold off on comments about him for the time being?"

[Kaizen]

I had just about settled down over everything (was back to talking about the future) when my roommate brought up some concerns last night. Actually, she brought them up as "stuff that bothered me until I got to know you", but did hint that some stuff still bothered her, so I asked what it was.

She made one comment about him seeming to treat me like a 1950s housewife. (And now that worries me because we got off that track and I totally forgot to ask her what she meant.) She also brought up something she's said before about men putting their arms around women as a sign of dominance and possessiveness. (Which I disagree with. I mean, it could mean that, but couldn't it also just be a roomful-of-people-appropriate way to cuddle?) Mainly, she said, it seems like I'm forming my identity around him, and that I'm pretty emotionally fragile so it make it easy to dominate me.

As far as the identity thing goes, last night I did an exercise that's been suggested on here where I tried to imagine my life about five years in the future with him not in it. It was easy. (I'd put it on here but I have to get to class soon; I'll do it later if anyone wants to see it.) It was actually pretty similar to how I imagine my future life with him in it, the exceptions being stuff that relates to him. The main difference is with him not in my life I'd be living as close to home as I could so I could see my family frequently, but with him I might have to move elsewhere because he's in med school and doesn't know where he'll get his residency.

And the emotionally fragile thing I know about, and I'm working on it. Mostly it comes out when we get into political discussions, but that happens with everyone I get into a political discussion with, or even articles I mentally argue with. I don't feel I have enough facts or valid points to argue back, so I start getting convinced.

Anyway, after the conversation and this morning I got that sick feeling again and wasn't feeling like doing anything, but I've got it mostly under control. Going off something Redskies said, I realized I have a tendency to want to resolve things as soon as possible, and I seem to get the sicky feelings when I can't. As I've been reminding myself, this is something I need to think about for awhile. I'm not going to magically figure out if his intentions are good the next time I talk to him, and then either break up with him or be certain I'm going to marry him. That's not a decision I have to or even should make now, so just relax, go to class, and focus on my own stuff until I can talk to him again.

[Redskies]

I confess, I feel a little lost about what, exactly, these people think is the matter with your boyfriend. I'm wanting to be a little cautious about not just riding over their concerns, because sometimes people genuinely do find it hard to describe an issue. But honestly, in what you've written here, I'm not hearing anything that sounds like it's anything at all.

Can we back up a bit to the part where you said, about looking at the abusive and/or not-okay behaviour checklists, for some of the items, that your parents say he does them? Which items do they say he does?

[Kaizen]

I agree, I'm definitely not trying to just ignore what people have said! (My mom says I'm not listening, but I'm trying to!)

What my parents have said, generally, is that they don't think he respects me, and think that he looks down on me in terms of intelligence because of the differences in our fields of study and because I'm undergraduate and he's at graduate level. On my side of things, they and my roommate say that I'm defining myself around him, refuse to believe or notice negative things about him, and am submissive towards him.

So let's see. On the "potholes and deadends" page I can see them checking off that he sets all the rules, he puts me down and is negative toward me, and that I change my behavior for him.

On the current abuse checklist on the message boards, nothing fits on the "partner does" list. On the "me" list, they'd probably say I don't have a sense of self outside of him and am making excuses for him, and obviously that I'm hearing concerns.

[Redskies]

Okay.

Let's imagine you and he are going to see a film. You both want to go see an animal documentary. You want to see a film about wombats: you've been reading about them and think they're interesting, and maybe you might do some future study about wombat behaviour or work in wombat care, who knows, it's early days. He's never thought much about wombats, and doesn't think they're all that important. He wants to go see a film about antelope: he's really into antelope, and this is the best antelope documentary this year. What happens next? What do you each do and say?

(Or, if that seems completely unhelpful to you, that's fine too, I can ask something else.)

[Kaizen]

Well, I'd probably mention the stuff you said, about liking wombats and thinking they're interesting. He'd probably say the stuff about liking antelope and the awesome reviews of the antelope documentary. I can't see it getting super heated or anything because after all it's just a movie. If I did get super emotional about it, for some reason, he'd probably say he was fine with the wombat movie and insist we see that. (That happened with a restaurant once, and I apologized and he said it was fine.) Otherwise, if the antelope movie sounded interesting to me too, we might go to that and I'd plan on finding someone else to go to the wombat movie with. (I don't like going to movies alone.) If the antelope movie didn't sound interesting to me, I'd push harder for the wombats.
So I can't really definitively say which we would end up going to.

Awesome choice of animals by the way. Wombats are actually an inside joke with us, so that's kind of funny.

[Heather]

You know, Kaizen, I wonder if you'd be up to just sitting down and writing out (here, where we can see it, too) YOUR own feelings and experiences within this relationship. In other words, what's the story of your relationship to date and how have you yourself felt in it -- the story without anyone else's thoughts or feelings, just your own?

I feel like having a better sense of that might help us help you better, and just taking the time to do that might also, in and of itself, be helpful for you as a tool for you to get more clear about how YOU feel and how this relationship is and has been for you.

[Kaizen]

Wow. I don't know if I can commit to doing that at any given time (beginning of the semester, I have a lot of personal stuff I'm working on, commitments to my house, etc.) but it's totally something I'm up for doing, if you think it would help.

[Heather]

This is about support and help for you, so by all means, if you need to focus on other things for now and come back to this when you have those more sorted, take whatever time you need.

[Kaizen]

I met my boyfriend when I was a freshman in college and he was a senior. I was actually dating another guy at the time, also long distance. He had been hospitalized for depression a couple weeks after we declared we were in a relationship, which was about a week after we met (this is going to include a lot of stuff I’m not proud of). He told me he would be able to talk to me on weekends, which he never did. (I'm not casting blame. I'm sure he wasn't allowed.) I hadn’t talked to him more than a couple of times since then when I went on a class trip to Washington DC, and a guy, who on here I call Joseph, starting showing interest in me. He offered me his coat on a cold night, talked to me a lot, and bought my pizza with his one day. Eventually, when he started holding my hand, I pulled him aside and told him that I had a boyfriend and it was long distance, and he apologized for putting me in a bad situation and said he understood... except I promptly became the queen of mixed messages by grabbing his hand again and saying that I needed someone to hold onto.

We returned to school, and this continued for the next month and a half. I really liked Joseph, and ended up doing a lot of things with him such as going out to dinner and going to school events, as well as having many nerd conversations. I still heard nothing from the guy I was dating, and eventually I stopped texting him. Things between Joseph and I started getting sexual. It was my first experience with that, and at first things weren’t so good on both sides. He didn’t check with me as much as he should have, and I was curious so I didn’t think about what I was actually comfortable with, and just went along with things. We’ve worked on that over the relationship, and when I eventually confessed a couple months in exactly how bad things had been, he apologized. I said I’d long since realized he wasn’t intentionally pushing past boundaries, and he said (hope it’s okay to quote here) “I'd still like to apologize, I shouldn't have pushed you and at that time I didn't really have a sense of how much your morals meant to you and how suggestible you were”. By now we’re much better about consent, multiple times he’s asked if I was really into something (and stopped if I said no), and the last few new things we’ve done have all been things I initiated. Slowly, and watching his eyes to be certain he was good with it, of course.

Anyway, to jump back to chronological order, Joseph met my family when he helped me pack to go home. He had asked me to come back to school for his graduation, and I had agreed. The night before that, my boyfriend texted me saying he was out of the hospital. As soon as he heard there was another guy in the picture, he swore at me for cheating on him, and quickly thereafter stopped responding. I felt like pond scum.

But I went to Joseph’s graduation the next day, and his mom really liked me, and the friend who went with me said she liked Joseph, and now that I didn’t have worry looming in the back of my mind I noticed even more how much I loved being around him. When he got home that night after a six-hour drive he texted me saying he wanted to let me know what a great day he had.

Since then, we’ve been long distance. We Skype pretty much every night, but either of us can call it off if we’re busy, studying-wise or doing something with others. Since we both love talking about things we’re interested in, or even random things we’ve learned, it isn’t too hard.

We’ve visited in person about every two months. Usually he comes to see me, because he’s in med school and most of the lectures are non-mandatory and are posted online, so he can come see me for a weekend and watch the lectures some combination of while he’s here and when he gets home. I’ve visited his home twice, both times in the summer. We have a bunch of traditions during visits: getting Chinese, getting ice cream. I try to cook for him every time, since I enjoy cooking and like having an audience other than myself (and not having a ton of leftovers). We’ve recently gotten into a tradition of going on some kind of nature walk each visit, too, which we both like. He has a good camera and likes taking pictures, and I love posing.

Things I like about our relationship/him: Awesome nerdy conversations about the randomest things, he’s very grounded which helps with my author-brain worrying tendencies (“Honey, I promise the world is not going to come to an end because you didn’t submit your work-study hours.” “Yes, it is!” “Oh. Well, then, I’m sorry. You single-handedly ended the world by not entering your time.” I couldn’t respond because by then I was giggling.), he’s also much less openly worried about what other people think of him so can similarly help balance out my constant worries, we have the same strange sense of humor including puns and taking silly things deadpan seriously (a couple nights ago we ended up talking about “the dusty rucksack in his closet in which he keeps the few clues he has about soccer”), he’s very affectionate and we use lots of cute nicknames for each other, he’s more real-world savvy than me thanks to his parents’ divorce when he was young leading to him helping his mom out a lot.

What I think I bring to the relationship: I’m extremely creative and have made him/us various things including dinners as well as having general ideas of stuff to do, I’m also really affectionate, I’m the more optimistic of us, I think I have more diplomatic/social skills, I love learning about pretty much anything so I’m always interested in what he’s doing or learning, I’m more outgoing.

Problems we’ve had:
A major one was that for the longest time we argued most nights over something like this:
Me: *thinks of something cute he might have said at this juncture*
Him: *doesn’t say thing, innocently continues conversation*
Me: *continues conversation, gets annoyed*
Him: What’s wrong?
Me: *thinks, it’s really a silly thing to be upset about...* Nothing.
Him: *continues conversation*
Me: *continues conversation, uninterestedly*
Him: Seriously, what is wrong?
Me: *thinks, still too silly to mention plus now it’s too long since he could have said the thing* Nothing.
**repeat repeat repeat until finally**
Me: *bursts out with I’m upset about, prefixed, suffixed, and interfixed with how dumb this is and how he shouldn’t bother saying the thing now because by this point it means nothing*
He kept pointing out that if something is bothering me, it’s better to mention it than sweep it under the rug, and if I don’t mention something I want it’s a lot less likely he’ll know I want it. I’ve gotten better at that.
On his end of things, it eventually came out that he doesn’t like saying a lot of personal romantic things out loud over Skype where other people might overhear. The compromise has been him saying less-personal cute things over Skype (I didn’t ask for that specifically, but he’s been doing it which is awesome), and sticking to text-based communication and visits for the really sappy stuff. (In fact, tonight I asked him if we could not Skype tonight and just message, because I could use some affectionate words. So that’s what we’re doing.)

Before the conversation with my family, he and I freely talked about being married someday. Not before I was out of college, definitely (my stipulation). And probably not for a couple years beyond that either, to get him out of school and into residency. And obviously after we’d lived in the same place for awhile. But we would talk about what it would be like.

(I figure it's better to just post this now that I've written it, without overthinking or editing any of it or making it any longer, so sorry for any errors. Normally I'd read it over first.)

[Heather]

Thanks for this, and hope it was at least enjoyable!

You know, reading this, I am not personally seeing any red flags, and what I am hearing from you just sounds a lot like someone in a relationship she enjoys, feels enriched by, and has found to be a place to do things she enjoys with someone she enjoys.

But there is something you mentioned in here that I am wondering about. You talk about initially just passively going along with sex. That kind of passive going-along with what others want, or are saying or doing: is this an issue for you in general? I ask that because if it is, and this is also how it has been going with other people's feedback to you about this, it is possible part of the problem is exactly this.

In other words, if people have the expectation you will just go along with what they say or do, part of all this may be that pattern. What happens when you tell these folks to back off, that you beard them, that you took their input, but that you are choosing to stay in this right now, and they can either be supportive or they can be quiet?

[Kaizen]

So first I must tell you about the conversation last night because it was totally awesome: first we got to talking about liking to role play dominant and submissive stuff when we're together, I said I'd like to be on the dominant side more often and he said he'd like it too. Then he confessed the reason he's been shying away from that kind of stuff lately is that it's mostly been him on the dominant side and that really makes him want intercourse, which is something we're not doing. So we decided to talk more about that "conundrum" next time he's here. (He said at least we were in the same boat about it being a conundrum and I said I didn't like the boat and he said he didn't either but enjoyed the company.)

And then the really good part, he said he'd like us to talk about sexual stuff more because he thinks the importance of it is out of balance with the amount we talk about it. Which was great to hear, since I agreed. That led to talking about those early days I mentioned yesterday, and we agreed those would have been better with a lot more communication. Eventually I got up the nerve to bring up an idea I'd had of role playing those situations the way I wish they would have gone... And he really liked it and said we should do that next time he's here. So that's something exciting to look forward to.

Anyway. Yes, passively going along with things is a common act for me. Often I honestly don't care (things like movie choices and reataurants) and would rather have the other person pick and then accept or reject, but sometimes I do care and just can't bring myself to mention it, and other times I get really passive-aggressive and go along with the thing in a very mopey fashion, hoping someone will notice. I think I'm getting better with that, generally.

But the problem with this particular situation is that my mom says I'm not listening to her and "have an answer for everything" (that one not to my face: to my dad when I don't think she realized I could hear her) even when I'm just saying "Actually, Joseph and I do disagree on things, such as blah blah blah." If I actually said something to the effect of your last sentence, that would be the ultimate in not listening, and I think she'd take it as, hmm, as me being stubborn and acting to spite her, I think.

[Heather]

Or, she might take it as you setting a limit, which you get to do.

"I do hear you, and I have considered and respect what you said, but now I am asking you to also hear and respect me, especially since this is about my life and my choices, not about you. You don't have to be supportive of this, but if you can't be or do not want to be, I do need to set a limit here and ask you to please stop telling me the same things you already have, which I have already heard, and to stop trying to push me into a different choice, please."

If she doesn't go with that, then every time she comes at you with this again, you can just remind her of the limit you set, and excuse yourself from her company if she keeps going. Really, when you do that as a practice, people do tend to change their behaviour in time.

Too, if her concern is truly about you rolling over for others, she might become more confident in your ability not to if you stop doing it with her.

If to her, it's "not listening" because she has oddly decided listening means doing what she says, not just hearing her (in other words, if she has listening confused with obeying), then it's not. But not setting any limits at all with people means that we kind of don't get to object when they overstep them, because we have not actually set them. I'd say it's worth setting that limit, even if she oversteps it. Just doing that all by itself, regardless of her reaction, is probably going to feel powerful for you, and is the way you can stand up for yourself here.

[Heather]

(And that sounds like a great conversation, and I'm so glad you feel so good about it!)

You know, going all the way back to the front here, I think the simple answer is that if we don't feel we can trust ourselves with our choices in intimate relationships, then we've probably got to step away from them until we figure out what we need so we CAN trust ourselves. Because ultimately, we are the only people who make these choices, and are also usually the only people who will have to live with the consequences of those choices.

And for sure, that's often a learning process, where we take positive (and sometimes not-so-positive) risks, and find out if we can trust ourselves, what that means, and what potholes we need to look out for when it comes to our own personal blind spots, which I'm pretty sure all of us have. For instance, I am a very direct, literal person, so I tend to take what people say at face value. But since a lot of people aren't like that, that can be a blind spot for me because I can be slow to see manipulation or dishonesty happening when it is. I also tend to think the very best of people from the onset, and have a hard time walking away from people in crisis, so that's two more. I've learned what those are over a lot of time: it's not stuff I magically knew about myself before any life experience. You, too, will likely need time to learn what those things are about yourself, and then figure that while yes, you can trust yourself, there are some areas where you may need to get some outside perspective to be sure you're seeing things clearly.

But I'd also add that if and when people are pushing their ideas and opinions on us, and not leaving any room for our own free choices or feelings, that's not usually someone helping us to trust ourselves, but putting up barriers to that. That is more about control than help, long story short. So, if and when people like that are in our lives, we often are going to have to learn how to set limits or create distance with them in some way, because we really do need to trust ourselves with our own choices, and we need the people in our lives to help us with that, not get in the way of that or try and make our choices FOR us.

[Kaizen]

Another visit over. To update you on a good thing first, we did the reenactments and it was so much fun, both talking to each other like we just met and me getting to initiate things. I even worked in another thing that had bothered me: once back then he'd been laying on me and I'd been able to feel his erection and gotten nervous and told him to get off me, lying that I was too warm. So I did the same this time and then "embarrassedly" told the truth and he assured me that it was just a physical reaction to enjoying being with me and finding me sexy and that it didn't mean anything more than that, or that we had to do anything more than that. Which was exactly what I'd wanted to hear at the time but been afraid to ask for, so it was good to hear it now.

I thought it was a wonderful visit.

Except I talked to my roommate after he left and she said again that she thinks I could do better. Because of the differences in the way he and I approach our religion (which I agree are something I should talk to him about, and I wish I could do it right now! but he's studying), because he can be really dominant in mindset (the same sort of thing we've talked about on here before), and she's worried by some of the stuff I've told her about us regarding sex (the kiss and so on). She found his answer when we discussed this a month ago-- basically, "I'm bothered that we didn't discuss things more because it bothers you. If we'd talked about things before doing them all along, and now you were saying "I wish you would have just taken the lead on stuff and let me draw the line when you went too far" I'd feel exactly the same. What makes me happy isn't trying to adjust your amount of input to a certain level, I want you to have the amount that makes you happy."-- red flaggy, while it was one of the things that made me feel better about the whole thing.

I guess I'm still trying to figure out how to take this into consideration without feeling like I'm going to throw up because "what if I'm wrong and he's a terrible person?" I never feel this way around him, I was really happy with this weekend, but I don't know if that's just because I'm blinded by love (roommate seems to think that's the case) or because things really are good.

[Heather]

If you just tune out everyone else as much as possible, Kaizen, and look only at your own gut feelings, what do they say?

[Kaizen]

I want to stay in this relationship because I enjoy being with him. I don't feel he's manipulating me or trying to hurt me, and I enjoy the sexual things we do as much as he does. I do want to have that discussion about faith though, and of course we need to talk more about the living situation after I graduate.

[Heather]

So, there you go.

How about you start by focusing on YOUR feelings and what you know, all by yourself, you want or need to talk about or work on together? And in the meantime, you can tell those outside your relationship that you'd like a break from their feedback and input, because you are finding that -- even if they mean well -- you are struggling to find your own voice and feelings in all this, and really need to get centered in that first and foremost.