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How can I ease the tension?
My boyfriend and I have lived together for over two years now. When I first met him he was a UPS driver but two months after I moved in with him he lost his job and two months after that I lost mine. I had worked at my job for 25 years and he had worked at his for 16 years! He went through a deep depression, sleeping all the time and nothing else. He finally found another job but his income was of course cut to 75% of what he was making and mine was cut to nothing! I found a part time just recently that only pays minimum wage. We lost everything we owned! We constantly bicker over just about everything! I know alot of it is just the lack of money and the tension it brings. We can't do much of anything for ourselves that involves cost. We constantly worry about just paying rent now that we've lost our home. Isn't there something that I could do to relieve some of the tension between us. We are totally devoted to each other but at times I just want to run away. Seems like nothing ever gets any better. What can I do to help our relationship? He is very quiet and doesn't talk much and I don't want to put more tension on him by trying to get him to talk so nothing is really ever "talked out" and there is never a plan. He pays child support of exactly half of his check every week, which he could change by having it re-evaluated but for some reason he won't do it. I don't understand why and if I bring it up we just get into a fight. The money that it would put in our pockets would be enought to keep us in rent every month rather than having to worry about it all the time but for some reason that he won't tell me, he never gets it changed. I can't change him so am trying to change me but my attitude is going sour despite my efforts at trying to maintain a good relationship through all of this. This has been going on for two years now and I am wondering if we are even going to make it together the tension is so bad. What can I do?