Hi Mikki,

I write this post with a huge caveat which is that I’m not an expert on these things and I tend to have a pretty negative outlook on things. This is just one person’s take, but based on your story I don’t think you’re crazy and I agree this guy’s being a jerk. If I had a girlfriend who was living with an ex I’d be a little alarmed. It’d be odd not to be, at least a little. And if that’s causing you discomfort you’d hope your significant other would rectify that. And he’s not. Also, if I brought it up (as it seems reasonable to) and she responded like your boyfriend did, that’d be bad for us. I agree that’s a problem.

I also believe that 99% of relationships are f’ed up like this where people don’t actually, truly, deeply love each other and are together based on something else — convenience, laziness, settling — other than true love. Basically you have two options. Stay with him, accepting that he’s going to occasionally act dismissive and possibly hurt you. Or leave and be alone. I can’t tell you what’s better. I’m a complete failure myself, which is why I’m on this site to begin with. I don’t know what else to tell you. No one except you can really figure it out for real.

I’ll just make one more recommendation which is a book called “Unworthy” by Anneli Rufus which is written for people who hate themselves (particularly the audiobook, which is read by someone with a perfect voice for the book). It may not apply to you — if so, you can ignore this obviously like you can anything else I’ve written — but if it does then all I can say is the book was an amazing help for me, putting into words complex things I had only vaguely known about myself and making me feel a little less alone/insane about myself.

Good luck

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Scott.