Wow! I have major trust/abandonment issues due to my history of sexual abuse as a child. Needless to say, ALL of my relationships have been very short term, everyone I was cheated on, and/or sabotaged them all. Thank you for sharing your history and the effects on your present day relationships. I understand your difficulty of distinguishing fear from valid concern. In the case of your situation, I couldn’t even begin to offer you advice since I have never had a boyfriend for more than 1-3 months, so I’m sorry. However, you seem to have a solid sense of who you are and what is important to you. For me, being in my late 30’s, having a child is important to me, so I won’t bother dating anyone who doesn’t want children. If animals are important to you, and you choose to spend YOUR money to support their well-being, then it shouldn’t matter what he thinks. I guess it matters whether it’s important if sharing that ethical point of view is important. That’s all I can offer for you, but I don’t know if it’s much help. If anything, I admire your ability to have had relationships that endured any significant length of time and wish I could even get to that point without sabotaging potential within the first month (if that). Anyway, I just wanted to write to you and thank you for your honesty.
