?

[unicyu]

ok well if it is what should i do? is it not ok to stay. he hasnt done it ever since and uk ive done shit too. ik it sounds unhealthy and it is dont get me wrong. but i love him and i want to know if we take yall advice and work on it we can be together

[unicyu]

idk what to do. tbh i want to work. ik he wasnt being malicious he always made a jokin face and a jokin expression. i coukd tell in his eyes he didnt. he always asks me what we do during sex is ok. and idk why i dont want to go. i can leave now he said he'd understand why. but i truely love him and i cant say why. he treats me good despite all that ive said

[unicyu]

we need help. he is kind of controlling. like im watching these videos and i was noticing stuff. like he always asks why im wearing makeup if im not seeing him and i dont listen cause i do whatever the fuck i want. and he always thinks im talkin to another guy. and i think hes talkin to ppl to and ik this ties into our unhealthy relationship. like idk. we dont have a lot of trust in our relationship and i want to change that. like when we argue i cut him off or like when we argue and i turn around he like grabs my arm and turns me back around or grabs my hand or arm to keep me from walking away

[unicyu]

like neither of us rly got girls or boys on our phone cause we'd get jealous. and ig thats from the luggage we brought into the relationship. we got rid of people when the person asked to or if the person got mad about the person on the phone. like ik he has anxiety and all and i do too but idk how to handle it. i jus want us to get better and uk trust more and find ways to not be controlling. like if we trust each other we wont be right? and does that mean he will abuse me if he kind of his controlling? or is it just unhealthy? like im sure he wouldnt like hit me or push me or anything

[unicyu]

he said he was gonna kill his self and he said he wasnt he wanted to see if i cared but idk what to think. thats fucking disgusting. but idk if thats manipulative. i said like u gonna kys over me and he didnt respond then he said yep then didnt respond again when i asked 3 times. but he was like crying and bawling and when he said thay he blurted it out angrily so i kinda think it was a buildup of emotion. he told me that he said it bcause he was crying and i didnt seemed like i cared and i cussed at him when he asked to hang cause i kept sayin no but he kept askin and crying and i was cussin at him and i said things in spite. so he said he said it to see if i even still cared about him and he apologized for it

[Heather]

unicyu: I'm sorry that no one has been able to answer your posts today or yesterday, but I am afraid it appears we have been very short-staffed this weekend.

Can you hold off on making any more until someone answers you? It's just going to be very hard for anyone to catch up once we do have staff (I can't work today, I won't be here until tomorrow afternoon) if you keep adding on more and more like this. I'm sorry you have to wait, but there's just no way around it. Thanks for being patient.

[Heather]

Okay, so in all the posts you made while I was away, you have mentioned a lot of different things that are just not okay:
• your boyfriend threatening to kill himself to try and emotionally manipulate you (to "see if you cared")
• your boyfriend having a very hard time with his feelings and having a hard time managing them in healthy ways
• a history of both of you doing things that aren't healthy to try and manage both of your jealousy instead of either of you actually WORKING on being jealous and managing those feelings in healthy ways
• you are saying there is a lot of control and insecurity on both your parts
• you have again mentioned a history of questionable consent

It's super clear that you BOTH need some real help, both with your relationship, but also separate from your relationship, as individuals. All the kinds of things you keep bringing here aren't things that two very young people with what sounds like no real education or support in healthy dynamics, and no ongoing help, are going to be able to fix on your own.

That's not because there is something the matter with the two of you, but because no one in that position could, all by themselves, and without even doing any reading to know what's healthy in the first place, do this by themselves or just together.

You say you can't walk in your neighborhood. I know parts of Baltimore can be rough, and that it's been particularly rough there lately (so sorry about that, too, it is such a cool city in some ways), but are you leaving to go to school? Is he in school?

If one or both of you aren't in school, can you give me an idea of what your day is like? Where DO you go? Do one or both of you have healthcare coverage, whether that's an insurance plan or public health? I'm trying to get a picture of all this so that we can find both of you some in-person help and/or some ways to access basic help resources, like books.

[unicyu]

i go to school, sports are right after then i go home. he goes to school, goes to work then goes home

[unicyu]

we have gotten better since the last youve talked. consent is pretty hard. maybe im like going too deep into it. cause i make him ask for each little thing he does which is kinda weird but he abides by. he does it mostly but sometimes he slips up like i said touch my butt and he grabbed it and i was like i didnt say grab it in my head but like i didnt say anything. i jus said grab it to ig make it ok

[Sam W]

I'm glad to hear things are getting a bit better, but what Heather and I have both said about needing more resources to have any sort of lasting, positive change in your relationship still holds true. So, finding those resources is still something we can help you with. You mention you're both in school; does your school (or his, if you're at different ones) have any sort of library (I know not all do, which sucks)? And do one or both of you have healthcare coverage, whether that's an insurance plan or public health?

You mention consent being hard. Do you mean one or both of you finds it hard to ask? Hard to communicate what you want? Something else?

[unicyu]

hard to communicate. like i get so nit picky with things. hes not necessarily doing things wrong it was like he was grabbing my ass when i said touch it and i thought "i said touch but ok" and i just said to grab it to ig make the situation better because im sick and tired of doing things wrong? like is that bad. and i do have healthcare

[unicyu]

but like is what i did bad about uk sayin what he did to make it better ig for me. i never was like no stop ig i was tired of arguin

[al]

Hi unicyu,

You're right - if you tell your boyfriend that you'd like him to touch your butt, he grabs it, and it's not exactly what you wanted, he can't be expected to know that if you haven't communicated it. We talk about this a lot in Be A Blabbermouth: The Whys, Whats, and Hows of Talking About Sex With A Partner- we can't have super specific expectations for how our partners interact or communicate with us (i.g. wanting your butt lightly touched, not grabbed; wanting to be called "babe" but not "baby") without explicitly saying what they are.
The way I see it is kind of like communicating your tastes to someone who knows generally what you like and don't like, but may not know the specific preferences you have. This is a super-simplification, but just as an example, if I asked my partner to bring me a cupcake, I couldn't really get mad if they brought me back a vanilla cupcake when I was really craving a chocolate one. Communicating about those specific preferences is a skill that takes time to learn, but it's also something that's pretty integral to successfully navigating a relationship (and certainly one in which trust and boundaries have already been violated). Learning to talk about this stuff, negotiate needs and wants, and have realistic expectations for our partners is part of the give-and-take nature of healthy relationships, and it's a lifelong process.

I'm glad to hear that you have access to regular healthcare - have you ever brought up the concerns that you have about your relationship with a doctor or healthcare provider? What about the resources at school that Sam mentioned - a library, a school counselor or therapist?

[unicyu]

we dont have a counselor at school anymore. a lot of it is my anxiety and as is his. i rly want to learn how we can better us

[Sam W]

Alright, so if you do have access to healthcare, that should mean you could get connected to counselor or other mental health resource through that channel. Do you have any idea of how to start that process? If not, that's something we can help with.

[unicyu]

i dont know how. and i mean like about the other thign i thought he would know because the same day we were doing stuff and i said to smack my butt and he smacked and grabbed it and i got upset cause i never said to grab it as well. is that partially my fault for not tellig him. i never said he couldnt but idk

[Heather]

We can’t expect a partner to know what we very specifically want at one time because of something we wanted another time. If we want a partner to do something super-specific at a given time, we need to tell them then. Another option you have is to get in the habit of both - not just him, you, too - asking each other how you want to be touched when you touch each other. Make sense?

In terms of mental healthcare, if you don’t know how to access it, we can help with that. Do you have a general doctor you see or a general clinic you go to?

[Heather]

I do also want to note that if you go to school, you may have access to some of the books I'd suggest about healthy relationships through your school library. As well, if you and your boyfriend go out in your neighborhood together, going to the library together is something you can probably do.

Figuring out how to have healthy relationships isn't something a person can do without information about it, especially if they haven't learned how to do that through the relationships -- like with family -- they have witnessed or been part of growing up. If one or both of you have any learning disabilities that make reading difficult, there are other options, too, like audiobooks or like getting help from community-based services or programs to help people learn how to have healthy relationships. For example, there are branches of both the YWCA and YMCA in Baltimore, and both of those are community organizations that often offer this kind of help and programming, and usually for free.

Long story short: if you're both serious about this, you're going to have to at least do some homework, and that really is all there is to it. No one can just magic this stuff for you: it takes learning and it takes an investment of time in learning, and that's just to get a start.

In the event reading isn't an issue for both of you, at the very least, you can start by both reading some of the content we have here on the website about healthy relationships. You don't have to walk anywhere to get this content, it's right here.

I've made a short list for you to get started with below that I'd suggest you share with your boyfriend, that you both read, and that you both use to talk to each other about:
• Does Your Relationship Need a Checkup?
• Hello, Sailor! How to Build, Board and Navigate a Healthy Relationship
• Intimacy: The Whys, Hows, How-Nots, and So-Nots
• Should I Stay or Should I Go?
• Potholes & Dead Ends: Relationship Roadblocks to Look Out For

[unicyu]

thank you sm

[unicyu]

you think we can make it work if we rly do our hw

[Heather]

I think that rather than focusing on if this can or can't work -- which is basically you asking us to predict the future, a thing neither we nor you can do -- you're better to focus on actually starting to do the work you have to to even figure out what "doing the work" will look like. I actually think that getting caught up in what might or might not happen with this relationship is something that can tend to up the drama of things, and that -- high drama -- always makes it harder to both figure out what is really going on, and to interact in healthy ways.

Why don't you start with those links and then even just see what you think and feel after reading them. Then, you can also talk with your boyfriend about what he thinks and how he feels after reading them, and you two can have a go at a first big talk WITH some information, this time.

Too, you know, I think it's sounded like both of you need this kind of information, this kind of homework, for yourselves no matter what. So, I think it's a good idea for you to start educating yourself in this way no matter what.

[unicyu]

alright. remember the asshole thing i mentioned before. tbh i dont remember if he put it in or not and he said once in the pool i said he could which i dont remember but tbh idk. i dont believe he put it fully in but he was about to ig cause i felt the pressure. like i already figured out it was sexual assault but does that mean its rape. if so does that change the information u gave me or i just shouldnt be with him

[Heather]

I feel like when we have had these conversations so far, you introduce information about something in the past, we address it, and then you tell us it isn't relevant because it's in the past. In other words, I'm feeling like it's not been productive for us to try and talk about what has happened in the past with you.

I think that for now, unless you feel unsafe with this person -- I trust your judgment on this: if you do, then no, you should not be with anyone you feel unsafe with -- we should stick to trying to talk about the present, and keep with the current conversation we're having. Were you able to read any of those links I gave you? If so, which? How about we talk a little about what you've read so far has left you with in terms of thoughts and feelings?

[unicyu]

i havent read them yet but im going to send them to my boyfriend and i to read

[unicyu]

well can u answer my question about the butthole thing then. does it change ur response if it is considered rape. like what happened is everything that i told u except categorizing it differently. if so does that mean its unfixable. ik we have stuff to work on ok but i want to know about that