Hello!

And welcome to another week of Kitty Love! Its been a heavy week with both Kaleidoscope and Oh Rama, I hope you recover quicker than me #week3flu

I wanted to start with a thanks to those that have kindly opened up and shared their questions so far. Its honestly one of the highlights of my week responding to your questions, so do keep sending them in.

And now for this week’s submissions… 

I have an eating disorder and am seeking counselling. I’m very interested in this guy though and I feel like it could go somewhere but I don’t know whether I’ll be strong enough to handle a relationship at the moment…

Should I be honest on the first date before things get serious? Maybe I should lie about it and assume it’s not there?

I think the last two questions don’t have to be the only options available to you. There should be a way between the first option of immediate and complete disclosure and the second strategy of dishonesty which might work better – both of those paths are at extremes. Eating disorders aren’t usually something that comes up on a first date, and its okay to feel weary about breaching such personal matters on your initial get-together. That said, if you don’t talk about it as soon as possible it will get harder and harder to say something. As you feel he gets to know you and likes you more, you might feel anxious that he is falling for a false image of you without knowledge of one the current aspects of your identity.

If you feel this could be something serious, and you’re unsure about whether you’ve the strength to handle a relationship right now, I would suggest spending some time cultivating your friendship with this guy, such that you begin to feel at a certain level of comfort where you can share more personal information about yourself. This way, you can be honest and take it slowly too. I think the formality of dating can sometimes put unnecessary pressure on naturally forming connections – it can make people feel like they have to act a certain way, do things in a certain order, only reveal things after a certain amount of time. Focus on what comes naturally right now, what you’re comfortable with, cultivate a connection where you feel you can be open and yourself, then go on a date.

In a long term relationship, how do you relay to your partner a change in your self being no longer comfortable with physical acts or being seen undressed when so far it has been the norm? Along the lines of changing the dynamic from just sexual to spiritual as well, or even just being truthful with ones boundaries and honest about them changing?

To me, the best relationships are nurtured and enlivened by constant communication. If this communication channel has shut down or frozen up, discomfort aside, it’s a too precious thing to not open up again, ASAP.

Relationships between people are changing constantly. Especially in the long term, a certain degree of adaptiveness and flexibility has to exist. People transform over time. It happens. Any relationship which relies on its participants remaining concretised frozen ice-blocks of themselves eternally is not healthy. That said, when everything is going all fine and dandy, its easy to forget to communicate, and then only much later realise that this flow of disclosure has been shut off from lack of use.

There’s no simple way of saying it. What I would suggest is opening a conversation about sexual preferences more generally – e.g. “There’s been certain changes in my preferences and appetite of recent has there been any changes in yours?’ and then lead into a discussion of what you’re no longer comfortable with. It’s possible that your partner may not want the same kind of relationship as you – you may no longer share the same needs sexually or otherwise – its up to you both to realise that completely and deal with it in the most considerate and honest way possible.

The one thing I would say is, stay true to your needs. If you are uncomfortable about something, that’s your feelings and that’s okay. Don’t feel you have to go against yourself just to keep the relationship intact, often, when people do that, the miscommunication involved leads to the relationship falling apart anyway. 

So, me and my ex has recently broken up.. I know that we should give each other space to move on, but I want her back my mind is split between trying to make it work and moving on, but if I choose to get back together with her I know we might fight. What should I do?

Firstly, you would have to both choose to get back together. Excuse me for my nit-picking of pronouns, but “I” implies it is only your decision.

Secondly, no relationship is ever smooth-sailing. And if it is, there’s usually a certain element of dishonesty, or absurd proportions of good fortune. Whatever you do, you can’t just get back together and expect everything to work. If there’s some sort of conflict that pushed you apart, getting back together without trying to deal with that means that of course you’re going to fight. If you are both comfortable with engaging with each other again, you need to look carefully and what these conflicts might arise from, and figure out ways of dealing with these issues together. If you feel that these disagreements are such that they may never be reconciled, perhaps you are just too different, and the break up was the only sensible way of solving an endless clash of personality. Look closely, work hard, but remember that not every relationship will work forever.

Katt Parkins

If you have any questions about sex lives or relationships and you’d like to send them to Katt please fill in this form