coffeesp00ns wrote

COMMUNICATE: "House Rules" are a little silly, but having some basic points to anchor your relationship with your room mate is a good idea.

Every relationship is a deal, but you won't necessarily have the same deal unless you agree on what the deal is. This is your SO, so presumably you have made agreements about open vs closed relationships, safe sex, money, noise, quiet times, going out, staying in, priorities, parents, vacations, closets and so on.

It's interesting to ask SO, what he thinks the deal is. See if it's what you think it is.

Hax, you wrote:

I still haven't found a "core" personality I can anchor myself to and I'm kind of getting tired of dealing with new things and new unknowns and new life goals.

From all you've said in this thread, that seems to be the most important issue. Making these agreements and changing them when they don't work is how you develop a core personality. A core personality is finding out what you like and don't like and having the courage to speak up about it. You develop a core personality when you stand up for ideas you believe in -- even if it's a little thing, admitting a preference to yourself moves you in the direction of having a "core personality." A good partnership is when you can accept the differences and negotiate a shared reality.

Breakup is certain when one partner is afraid to speak up or doesn't know how to speak up or speaks up and immediately backs down when there's opposition.

You'll find out all this.

You said that you've been a sheltered suburban and SO isn't. Do you feel that SO has more preferences and opinions and experience about this? Maybe you feel your inexperience means you don't deserve to have opinions.

Anyway, thanks for the link to The Story of Your Life. The story is about the difficulty communicating with an alien species. Kind of like relationships - even same-sex ones.