My boyfriend and I are quite different. He's the kind of man that has shaped his life around strict values. He finds a lot of dignity in his masculinity and in feeling needed. I admire this about him and love that he will go out of his way to do ANYTHING to make me happy. The issue comes from how differently we have lived our lives before we met. It seems that everything I enjoyed doing prior to meeting him is starting to make him uncomfortable.
It's not like drinking/smoking pot is part of who I am, but it has made so much of my social circles inaccessible to me that I've suddenly become alienated from my own life. The two people I now have anything to say to are him and my psychiatrist. I can no longer dress the way I've always dressed. I have to avoid most of my guy friends (people I have grown up with). I'm the kind of person who grows psychedelic mushrooms in her basement and it was genuinely the #1 reason I got into med school. The experiences he thinks are sinful or wrong are what shaped who I am.
I've come a long way on my own to get to where I am. I'm proud of my choices and what I've done with what I had. But now it feels like it's all been taken away from me.
We've talked about all of this before, he says he's "not going to stop me, but it's all as important to him as it is for me". He asks me exactly when I'm planning to quit drinking one day. BTW, none of this was a topic of conversation when we first met. We went out drinking/smoking and it wasn't a problem at all then.
He's the sweetest most caring man in the world. I am chronically ill and he's been to all my doctor's appointments with me. Gets me what I need before I even need it. Has never lied and I will never have to worry about cheating. I have never been loved with such intensity. And yet, when he told me that for my birthday he's taking me on vacation, I had to put on a smile. This would be our first time staying together. For my whole life travel was a getaway from my stressful household. Now it feels like I'm taking the stressful household with me.
I don't know what to do or who I am anymore. I will never love or be loved the way I have it now. This is the only man I see being a father to my children one day. Sorry for the rant, I really needed it. I feel like a huge ass.
TLDR: Middle ground is a place where one of us is miserable. What to do?