queer advice #38: how much sacrifice is too much?
Hey! Here’s a queer advice column for you. If you missed the last one—”I have a crush on my hot butch roommate”— read it here. If you have a question or a gay problem, send it my way anytime. xoxo, Maddy
hello xena worrier princess. my partner and i have been together for about 3.5 years (with a dramatic breakup 1.5 years in, and a dramatic coming back together 9 months later). we’ve been living together for a year. they are introverted and spend almost all of their socializing time with me, whereas i am very social and love to spend time with my gay ass friend group/have people over often. i am worried that our relationship is like…. too hard. it can be so rewarding - we have both worked through gender stuff, being trans, being fat etc etc together and it’s truly so special to have someone to be vulnerable with in those ways. but i just feel like they are so relationship-oriented and that i am not. they want to get married eventually and exist in a perpetual coupledom lifestyle and i don’t think that’s for me. we’re working through a couples workbook and are in couples therapy twice a month to work through some of this stuff. i guess i feel like a bad person for thinking that maybe it just… won’t work out. i often have the thought “this is too hard and too much and i am annoyed.”
when you are so fundamentally different from someone in lifestyle, can it ever really work? how much sacrifice is too much?
a confused and guilty cancer sun (with a Capricorn moon), 27
I don’t know if you should break up with your partner or not. I’m not a wizard. I do know, however, that framing this situation as “I’m a bad person“ or “I must stay in a relationship that’s not working for me” is NOT a helpful way to think about things!!