andisa

Thanks for the thought-provoking prompts.
The conflicts center on the way I'm "supposed" to be as compared to the way I am. With the parents, it's about religion, which I've learned to navigate through well enough.

It's more difficult with the mate. His "supposed" focus on the people in my life. Who I can or can't befriend, talk with, visit, confide in, or otherwise talk to. His fears that I might leave him for someone or something else provoke him to restrict me. Rather than upset him, I've largely complied. Though certainly not in full. I still maintain friendships, I still attend occasional meetings, I still write here at SR, I still love talking with people and meeting new people. It's part of my job, it's important to my life. But to tell him about any of these people only causes suspicions to arise. Why stir up trouble? But to keep my life secret from him, is hiding, it's avoiding, I don't like it, but it's better than hostility.

I have very few friends in whom I confide. That's pretty much off the table anyway, for fear up upsetting the mate. I have very few close friends, and those I do have are male, we talk about nature, birds, music. I have almost no interest in talking about men or housework or the stuff women talk about, which is, I suppose, another reason the mate feels so theatened.