Being in charge has always been a bit of a struggle for me, but I’m working on it! I know that if I don’t speak my mind and make decisions for myself this relationship will definitely not be a win for me.

Your advice has been wonderful, and your words have encouraged me to keep going, thank you so much once again, Anita. I wish you the best!

Maybe he doesn’t know his comments were disrespectful. Maybe he never learned that, being used to such comments in his household. So patiently teach him and expect him to be a good student and fast!

This is a great piece of advice, thank you, I will definitely keep it in mind!

And yes, I did ask him what’s been going on, he recently started going to the gym and some relatives from another state are currently staying at his house. He became pretty distant so the first thing I asked him was if he was okay, if everything was alright, he said yes and that he was just busy and I needed to understand that, of course I understand, but the thing is that he wasn’t this way before. Right now he’s on a break from college, but when he was still attending classes, no matter how busy he was (and he was, a lot) he always made at least a tiny bit of time for me.

I also don’t want to be a burden if something else is bothering him, so I try to stay positive and cheer him up, but sometimes he ends up bringing me down.

Hello there, thank you so much for your reply.

He often jokes in a cruel way, saying I’m not very smart or that I’m kind of dumb, or putting down my career saying how irrelevant it is (I am a fashion designer), he once ranked my appearence “on a scale from 1 to 10” (without me even asking) and I found it very hurtful because if you love someone, or at least appreciate them enough, mere numbers shouldn’t be able to describe what you see in that person (or is that going too far and I need a reality check?) Well, at least I know I wouldn’t do that to him. He realized what he had just done, apologized for it and tried to make feel better though, said he didn’t mean to upset me.

I did, however, ask him once if all those things were simple jokes or if he really meant any of that, he said they were all jokes. But I have a very low self esteem, and he knows that, I don’t know if that’s just the way he is, the way his humor works, or if I’m being overly dramatic and too sensitive about it.