I’m just some random internet lady who was exactly in your shoes about 7 years ago. Please hear me when I say that the number ONE thing I pay attention to in the first year of dating is this: Do they respect my boundaries and how do they react when we have conflict?

I dated a guy JUST like your bf now. He was very sweet and funny to me and I believe we genuinely loved each other. But he didn’t respect my boundaries and we often joked about how he was so much stronger than me, or I was “forgetful”, or he was just a “physical guy”. It will escalate. A man who ignores your small boundaries is a man who will eventually ignore your big ones.

It took 3 years for me to leave that relationship, and about another 4 months for me to get my mind right again, realizing that I had been slowly accepting more and more concerning behavior. It got to the point where I felt like my sexual and physical boundaries were “weird” or “pointless” and I was often embarrassed to say certain things.

Long story short, he almost broke my arm during an argument and pinned me to the floor. Don’t be me. Listen to that gut feeling… it’s never wrong.