Much love, bonny! I'm so sorry that this continues to be a terrible ordeal for you and Bartleby. Thanks for checking in.

I'll contend that the one relationship I've had had no real impact on my growth as a person. So I'm wondering if you or Scrappy would call it a relationship then.

I wouldn't say that being with Hubby makes me want to be my best. I'm not aware of ever consciously considering it. But I will say that he's made me both braver and more cowardly, in that he's pushed me into doing things I didn't want to but I needed to, while at the same time I haven't done things because they would take me too far away from him.

I like to think that when the time comes I'll be able to stand on my own two feet, without him to hide behind/lean on, but at the moment, he is my (slightly crumbly) rock.

So if it doesn't change you, it wasn't a relationship?

I think you might be putting too much moral claim on the word "change" here. Or at least for myself, I think that not all relationships change a person. The ones that have changed me, well often that's another way of saying my life moved in a new direction because of that person. I think friendships can be as richly transformative as romantic relationships. It's like that song in "Wicked" about friendships, "I can't say if I've changed for the better, but I've been changed for good."

Dear beloved boss: I know it's not your fault the goalposts keep moving, but I may lose my shit soon. Too. Much. To. Do.

Dear resigning coworker who gets off on being an abrasive arrogant hipster asshole: leave faster.

H and I have been together for...decades. I often refer to our relationship like two parallel lines on either side of a "center" that anchors our lives, lines that curve independently, are either closer or farther apart in proximity, either of us ahead or behind the other at given points in time. We were young (so young!) when we formed this alliance, and each of us has grown--as we would each have done, as we moved through young adulthood to maturity. But both of us have grown, too, in ways that mesh and ways that bring "otherness" to the relationship, ways that aren't about the other, but that we can share, that make us interesting. We grow, together and apart.

Each line reflects the other, and sometimes our lines curve inward toward each other and match in speed, and we travel in close and happy proximity for a "honeymoon" space. And sometimes one of us will diverge from center, far to the side, to explore strange new ideas. Sometimes one of us will lag, mired in old business, in sadness, in anger. But always, at some point, the lines begin to move forward, to pace each other, to move toward each other.

Even at the point we're farthest apart though, the lines reflect awareness of each other, knowledge of the other, a tether, a tug, a lifeline between us that provides an emotional tie, an assurance that we have been apart before, and will come together again.

I think I've flogged this metaphor long enough.

Oops

The one serious relationship I've been in persisted when - and only as long as - I suppressed a large portion of my personality. The part that comes out to play with the Buffistas. When I started growing up and letting that part of myself show, he hated it. And tried to force me back to being the person he wanted. It ended badly.

Or at least for myself, I think that not all relationships change a person.

That's quite simply my point. Which contradicts Scrappy and Laura's point.

I think you might be putting too much moral claim on the word "change" here

What does "moral claim" mean?

Bev, I love your explanation and metaphor, and during some of the bad days, I cling to it.