Carolyn Hax: Talk to partner about your needs

Carolyn: Last night I got together with some friends, which was wonderful, but it made me realize how much I miss hanging out with them. All my free time is spent with my (also wonderful, but not very social) boyfriend, who wants to spend every night together. I’m also a new teacher and in school, and I need to spend part of each day just recuperating from a day spent with children. I feel like I’m speeding through life and that next time I look up, I’m not going to have any friends left to hang out with. This has had me feeling sad and lonely all day. Is that what being married will be like? Should I break up with my boyfriend? Is the future going to look the same as this? – Va.

Exactly, if you let it.

But dumping your boyfriend isn’t the path to an alternate future. Maybe he’s right for you, maybe he isn’t. But you won’t find that out – and, more important, you won’t inoculate yourself against re-carving this same rut with someone else – until you learn to preserve yourself while still being part of a couple.

Your boyfriend has needs that he seems to be making clear. What about you? It seems you’re only now starting to identify, slowly, through deprivation and desperation, what your needs are: time alone, time with your friends, whatever else your wake-up-caller has whispered in your ear.

Organize these thoughts and articulate them to your boyfriend, not to make demands but to open a practical discussion about your day-to-day lives.

This is where you may hit the first of three standard happiness-killers. If you say you’re tired or miss your friends, and if all he hears is criticism of him – even after you give the valid it’s-not-personal-it’s-just-who-I-am explanation – then he might not be mature enough himself to balance individuality with life as a pair.

If you do pass Go, then that’s promising but still not decisive. You’d still need to find out, with the affirmation of time, whether you both can adjust to make each other happy while still being happy yourselves. Wanting to is nice, but it doesn’t count. You either pull it off, or you don’t.

Finally, you test your own maturity. Can you face some discomfort in the short term to do what’s best the long? That covers anything from expressing needs, to resisting pressure, to admitting mistakes, to staying, to going – all components of remaining true to yourself.