I feel stuck and I need some advice. After I graduated from college with a Masters degree, I met a wonderful guy at a conference and started a new relationship. In the beginning, it was at a distance. To live with him, I had to move to New York City one year ago although I didn’t really want to. I did it to be with my boyfriend. Since I moved to NYC, I cannot find myself anymore. I feel desperate and alone in this world and I can barely sleep at night.
My boyfriend has started to treat me badly. I suffer because I feel rejected by him and everyone here. I am trying hard to adapt to the people from here and to the alert life from NYC. I used to be an open, sociable person but now I don’t know who I am anymore. It is awful! What should I do? I miss myself so much!
Tyra from New York, NY
Dear Tyra,
Make sure that you have had an open discussion with your boyfriend from soul to soul and communicated to him what’s bothering you. If he is not open to a conversation and doesn’t listen at you, maybe you should think seriously that something could be wrong with the relationship and if it’s worth it or not.
Also, I would suggest the following exercise: take a few moments for yourself and write down in a notebook all your features that you used to have when you were pleased with yourself; when you were feeling great in your skin. It doesn’t matter if the features are positive or negative. They’re all yours and give you your own charm. Then, think about each of them and write what would help you get them back. For example, you said that you used to be sociable and you had friends. For that reason, you were looking for people that you started to be friends with, that you were friendly, loyal, honest, a good listener and so on; so features similar to yours. The external factors/features probably were people met with the same values and principles.
After you do this, try to identify what you can do to reenact these internal and external factors. The most important are those internal. When you analyze them, check how much they are stimulated by your couple relationship and by the city you live in. If they bring to light all those parts of yours that you don’t like (‘bad’ parts), I suppose it is the time for you to think seriously if it is worth it to invest in this relationship and in the living there.
Sometimes, some measures of avoidance and retrieval are the best.
Normally, healthy, happy and good quality couple relationships make us better, more efficient, even more beautiful. For sure, they don’t make us lose ourselves!
But it is up to you, Tyra; you decide what you will do next: to keep staying in a relationship in which you feel you don’t find yourself anymore and your boyfriend treats you bad or to move on. Be smart about the situation and whatever comes from it can be a wise investment in your future with or without him.