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I don't think it has cases. I think there's a universal definition: not reliant on external approval to feel worthwhile.

It is daunting, it is confusing, it is hard to get started. That's why so many people need the public implosion to get motivated: Up until that point, all of their strength is dedicated to the effort not to implode. I think of is as someone white-knuckled with the effort of hanging on. Once they reach the very point they were trying so hard to avoid, then they realize there's no point in holding on any more, and they release their grip.

There are ways, though, to let go incrementally and get adjusted to the idea of listening to your own voice instead of everyone else's. The most accessible is to start taking note of the countless little decisions you make every day, and make the conscious choice to  opt for (or at least admit*) what you really want, instead of what you've been conditioned (or conditioned yourself) to do.

*This comes with a warning label, though: You've probably been conditioned to bathe regularly, show up to work/school on time, observe traffic laws and not shoplift candy bars. Before you start your incremental I-gotta-be-me program, be sure to commit to the things keeping you employed and non-incarcerated as non-negotiable, and then start second-guessing those other daily decisions. 

But do treat virtually everything within those boundaries as fair game. 

You tell all of them that you receive too many manuscripts and other publishing queries from people you know and love to give them all the attention they deserve, so you've had to make it your personal policy not to field any of them. 

Thank you, too, for reporting your experience. Therapy can seem to have such a high barrier to entry that a reputable, accessible resource is pure gold. 

This is tough, because it's so personal--for example, the first thing that came to mind was becoming a Big Brother/Big Sister, but if you don't enjoy being around kids, that's a non-starter. Fostering homeless dogs and cats is another great, steady, purposeful use of time that arises from a bottomless need, but, again, are you an animal person?

So the only advice that feels right is to ask, what do you have a knack for, what are you passionate about, what brings you joy? Or, if that's still too big to wrap your mind around, look around you: Where is the most pressing local need? In those questions there might be the seed of something that can grow into a unifying purpose for you. 

Not that having one is necessary; it just wipes out the "What now?" question for good.

Whatever you end up making of all this, you still accomplished something difficult and significant. Congratulations on breaking a 10-year-long bad habit, against what must have been a powerful gravitational pull.

It takes a thick skin to wade in there when you're the one they're discussing, so good for you for being open to constructive deconstruction. 

Has either of you talked to any twins? I imagine they'd be strongly opposed to the idea. I don't have a twin myself, but two of my kids are, and that leads many of the adults we meet out in the world to point out that they also are twins. Then come the stories of how amazing it is to grow up that way, with your better-than-best friend. Even though this would most likely be a wide-open adoption, I just can't imagine taking that experience away from them--not even for such a generous and loving reason as your sister's.

I also expect the husband will nix the idea quickly, but advising that you kick the idea down the road till someone says no is not much of a plan.  

That kind of badgering is so totally unacceptable in a marriage. Have you asked him what purpose he thinks he serves, repeatedly telling you things that any sentient adult already knows? And that annoy you, hurt your feelings, move you to question how much he actually cares about your needs vs. his own, but haven't once made you thinner?

Should he counter with the you're-scarred-from-childhood crap, stand firm. "I don't like talking about my weight because there's nothing more to say, and because I've asked you to drop it. Your choice to belabor the subject, despite my explicit request that you drop it, is not my parents' fault, nor is it my fault."

If that's not enough to wake up this "partner" of yours to his arrogance, then Step 2 is to identify an area where you'd enjoy some improvement in him, and asking how he'd like it if you reminded him on a daily basis that he was falling short of your expectations.

Should he answer this with an, "I'd appreciate it because I want to improve myself" (which will most likely be rhetoric, not truth), then you have an opening to request counseling: "We obviously have different ideas of the boundaries between what's our own business and what's the other person's. I'd like to go to marriage counseling to work this out."

And finally ... if he refuses, then you have two things: 1. a solid indication that this issue goes well beyond your weight and into matters of boundaries, kindness, arrogance and entitlement. 2. a decision to make. Is this a deal-breaker for you, those impending 30 years with him all up in your grill, thinking he has that right?

I don't think anyone's saving anyone, and I don't think anyone should lie. I just think friends and lovers should stay out of the business of critiquing each other's work, except in cases where it arises organically--say, when they established that critiquing rapport before there was romance, or when both parties truly feel comfortable giving and receiving constructive criticism.  

I also think one critic, even a good and informed one, isn't even close to the last word. Just think of all the mega-novels lately that a good chunk of the population finds unreadable. If any of these unimpressed readers were the loved one asked to give an opinion, said cash-cow novel might be in the bottom of somebody's drawer. And since one opinion isn't everything, why even get the one opinion that might injure a relationship? Let the people on professional footing do the truth-telling (or, I should say, their truth-telling).

There's that. Thanks.

And that, thanks.

Thanks. And:

And:

And this. Thanks all.

Seems to me your husband already spoke up for himself. Any reason to think he isn't handling it on his own, or able to keep handling it?

Are you able to step into your past a bit, to rummage around for an experience that can help inform your understanding of your fiance? Specifically, I'm thinking of a time in a past relationship when the only life you could envision is one with that person. I don't see that huge a difference between "publicly promised" and privately felt, except perhaps in the timing (if you were under 18 when you felt this way) or degree of impulse control.

Either way, your life was this person ... until it wasn't. Now your life is with him, and you're both just as fully in this moment as you would have been if there were no failed  early marriage. (Arguably he is more so, but that depends on how much he learned from it all.)

Well, since you've tried everything else, the only answer you've really left yourself is to leave for good, decisively enough to trigger the processes of healing and of building new lives without each other.

But, for the sake of argument, you say "we connect on an other-worldly level"--and then you say, "a life where I know I will not grow and connect spiritually/religiously with my spouse." Which is it?

To me, "connect on an other-worldy level" and "connect spiritually" sound like the same thing. That would mean your only failure to connect would be religously--and while that's clearly no small thing to you, it's also not fair to say you wouldn't grow spiritually from this relationship. Again, that's using my reading of "other-worldly level"--as well as my belief that one doesn't need religion to be spiritual. If you didn't mean it that way, then we're back to Paragraph 1.

What went wrong? You've changed, you say, but you still call her stubborn. That's hedging.

This is bigger than a chat question--it's a great therapy question, if you're so inclined--but I want to float one possibility. Are they working off an ancient script that you and your sister unwittingly wrote when you were too little to remember? I ask only because I've seen it so much over the years, where adults take great comfort in assigning kids an identity and sticking to it, no matter how much the kid changes. The typical contruction is "The ____ one." "He's the smart one," "She's always been the dramatic one," "Ooh, look, he's going to be your troublesome one."  Not only do people say these things, but they do it out loud, in front of the kids. Gah.

Anyway, if your folks do this--and as much as it rankles, I get it, it conveys the illusion of mastery of one's little world--then it would make complete sense that you, truthful and competent, are the one who tells tales, and your sister is the dependable one (if a bit prone to drama).

I dunno. How do you feel about the possibility that you might have years of energy left when your husband's health starts to fail?

Not that it's guaranteed; I don't need to get into the vagaries of terminal illness and traffic accidents to prove you don't ever know what you'll actually get. But, should you both remain on your cuurent trajectories, he'll succumb to age two decades before you do. I wish I had all the examples near at hand, but over the years I've gotten a good carton of letters from people who married someone much older--and while some are expressions of deep regret for signing on to be a caregiver in the prime of their lives, most are celebratory, framing their foreseeably shorter time with these spouses as far preferable to not being with them at all.

Since you don't have confidence in your feelings yet, nor can you reasonably expect to after a year, it sounds as if you should slow down on the shacking up and get to know him (and your heart) better from the least risky perspective: staying right where you are.

Oh my goodness--you'll get no tsk-tsking from me, not even close. You have -not- been complicit in his bad behavior. A father who calls his 9-year-old daughter a "bitch" is knocking her off the grow-and-thrive path and squarely onto the survival path. You didn't have any say in that then. From an age before awareness, you have simply done what you felt was necessary to get by, because that was the one choice he gave you.

Now that you are an adult, please see this and forgive yourself. Give yourself the one thing he couldn't or wouldn't give you: acceptance that you matter. You matter no more and no less than any other human being, and that means you're just as entitled to dignity, civility, and the freedom to be flawed without getting those flaws shoved back in your face every single time you express them.

In other words, guide yourself on to the grow-and-thrive path. Since a dying father means you're likely to need it anyway, look up your local hospice provider and find out what counseling services they offer. It's not as if you can pluck compassion off the shelf and take it to the register, but hospice organizations are about as close to that as you can get. Take your burdensome truth there, and your mixed feelings and your self-loathing and no doubt your anger at your fate in the parent lottery, and leave it all there. You're not petulant, you're not ungrateful, you're a survivor of enduring, systematic abuse.   

Sounds good to me, thanks.

Ugh, that too. Thanks.

And, now that you mention it--what if one thrives and the other doesn't? What if they don't agree with the way the brother/husband are raising their half of the set? What if the brother/husband split up? I used to have ethical mini-crises when it came time to dress my guys, and I didn't have, say, two sweaters of the exact same weight: Which one do I give the thinner sweater? What if he isn't warm enough? I know that will sound nuts, but that kind of stuff occurs to you when you're doing things in twos.

On the religious education for your kids, you might be in a strong position to swing a deal with your husband. Often people who opt out of religion were exposed to it as kids, and therefore are open to giving their kids the same chance to grow up in a faith and then make their own choice. You and he would just have to think carefully about how much of his participation is conscientious child-rearing and how much constitutes fraud. I'd say you also have to prepare yourself for your someday kids to opt out of your faith, but that's a prospect every parent faces, true no matter how involved a co-parent is. 

On the connection issue, I can only say that every marriage leaves some hunger unsatisfied--whether it's religious, or intellectual, or physical, or just a whole-hearted embrace of a certain sport or hobby or cause. It's not realistic to expect everything from one person; we can only make sure it's not something we'll miss too badly, or regret not holding out for. Often the difference between okay and not okay is the source of this external nourishment. People who marry when sex is a problem, for example, learn quickly that their extramarital choices are problematic at best.

Meanwhile, those who find that missing nourishment in good friends and hobby groups are often just fine, even grateful to have their emotional lives diversified a bit--but even that is deeply personal. Some people love to have friends for friend-talk, and some people wish they got that from theit spouses. There's no answer out there that can change the fact that you have a tough decision to make, and you're exhausting your garce period for making it.

Please get some family therapy--soon, and find someone good. Your lying twin is trying to tell you something big, and you're missing the forest for the unbrushed teeth.

Exactly what I'm talking about, thanks.

"... but not make my family out to sound like the nutters they are": That ship has sailed. Stop worrying about how your family appears to others. They are who they are, and they're not you.

"... so I don't burn bridges with them": You either have a wedding and let the nutter chips fall where they may, or you elope. If you choose to elope, then your boyfriend alone tells his family, or you and he tell them together, that you and he are ready to get married now, so you're going to--and you will have a post-wedding party, on you of course, for both families, nutter chips and all.

You're a combined age of 83. You can do what you stinkin want. If his family takes that badly, then their bridge had kerosene on it anyway, and any spark was going to consume it. Truly. 

Follow her lead. And, be the parent you'd want: Do you think you'd appreciate hearing, "Why don't you stay home for once? You never give yourself time to think"--or would you prefer someone who understands that you have your own needs, as well as a right (and possibly sufficient maturity) to find your own means of meeting them, within certain gentle boundaries.   

"Yes, of course--when you take better care of yourself, you'll no doubt get more time with her." 

Right?

Give your mom credit for being an adult, and hope she does the same. 

I don't know you and I can still picture your face when she said this.

First, I wish time were rewindable so I could coach you to ask, "Interesting--what do you mean by that?" It wouldn't be appropriate to ask much beyond that, given the circumstances and the topic, but it is often helpful for several reasons to find out on the spot what a child is really saying. Asking them to define their terms often reveals a more age-appropriate truth.

Next thing, do mention this to the teacher. Schools are unique position to catch trouble early, and that only works if the witnesses are communicating. Some stories are told only in small pieces, often so small as to not seem worth telling, and if 20 people hold such pieces without sharing them, a troubled kid slips through the cracks. 

Last thing, for talking to your kid, I suggest preparing yourself by reading the work of Deborah Roffman. Pick the book that seems to cover this stage of your lives best, and that will likely be enough to get you started and keep you reasonably on course.