Hi Ivke,

Don’t doubt you’ll ever find someone as similar again, or more similar, or less similar but more suitable. There are a LOT of people you’ll meet over the course of your life. Quite a few of those would make suitable partners to you. Given your age, it would be surprising if this is the last relationship you’ll ever have.

That’s not to say I think this is a done deal, though. I think it can work out, but things will have to change.

It seems you need to work on how you’ll handle disagreements. Currently it seems to go like this: You raise some issue, she goes “Woe, I’m not good enough!”, you feel guilty, you shut up but you feel unheard & resentful, replay this in two days. This is no good. You need to find a better way. You’re both still really young, so a) it’s not surprising you’re not very good at having disagreements and b) you’ll be able to change your ways and learn better ways around this. I wish I could recommend a way to learn this quicker than by having lots of unhelpful arguments and disagreements, but that’s how I learned! Oh, and maybe look into nonviolent communication. It’s weird, but mixing it into your arguing repertoire can be useful.

I agree the household issues will have to be discussed with the bro and father too. The sex issues, that’s you two, obviously. In both situations, you’ll have to aim for an outcome other than: “Well now everyone’s upset so I’ll just shut up even though I was upset in the first place and my problem has not been solved.” Aim for “Well, I have said my piece, and we have come to some kind of proposal or plan for how things may be different, or I have agreed to just accept things for what they are and I can genuinely live with that because I now understand something I didn’t before.”

It’s not easy. But if you learn how to disagree with people in a productive way, you can go far in life.