Dear Isra:

If I was helpful to you, I would like to help you more, for as long as it takes.

Your last few lines in your last post are: “I’m not sure how to find a balance between putting energy into the relationship and also being the confident, free-spirited young woman I had finally started to be right before we started dating.”

You put it as an Either this OR that thing: either you are in a relationship OR you are confident, free spirited. This, I believe is not because there is something wrong with the guy or the relationship itself, or because the two of you have different goals but because in your relationship with any one or both of your parents, you had to put aside your free spiritedness, your needs so to please the parent.

You needed the parent and you still need attachment to another, a relationship but the cost you paid then is still the cost you automatically pay, and so you struggle.

Can you imagine that a relationship would encourage your confidence and free spiritedness, refreshing you, energizing you instead of exhausting you, worrying you..?

It could be the case, if your early experience with attachment was such.

I will wait for your response, and if you’d like, I am interested in communicating with you about this for as long as you’d like.

anita