hello dr lovemy name is cristina and I am 16 years old. I need your advice very soon. I have a very serious problem. this saturday I will celebrate 5 months with my boyfriend, but he has a basketball match. I know that basketball is very important to him, and he said to me that he will go to the match. I think that I am not as important to him as basketball!!! What do you think?
You can’t make him do anything, but you can tell him how his behavior makes you feel. In a good relationship, partners make the effort to listen and understand each others’ feelings and they work to arrive at accommodations that make each other feel considered.The issue here is that he isn’t making you feel like you come first. In order to feel happy in a relationship you need to feel that your guy places you first on his list. The second problem here is that he hasn’t learned how to meet his own needs in a way that doesn’t wipe you out.There’s a basic principle here. If you want a relationship to work, you can’t make one-sided decisions, especially if the decision has an impact on the other person. In this case, choosing to go to a game on your anniversary is a decision that affects you surely.What he needs to learn to do is to tell you what he wants to do and then ask you how you feel about it. Then you would say that you want to be with him on that night, but that you want to respect his wish to go to the game. Then he would say, how can we work this out so that I can still celebrate our anniversary and go to the game.The fact of his considering your feelings will already put your heart at ease and it will make you feel less demanding. As you talk back and forth, considering each others’ needs you will come up with a solution that is good for each of you as individuals and good for the relationship.The key here is to always make a choice that considers the other and preserves the connection. Taking care of the relationship is the ultimate gift you can give yourself.He needs to learn the basic principles I outlined above and put them into practice. Your relationship will thrive as a result.
