A lot of what you’re saying I do resonate with and appreciate, I do struggle with codependency and it’s one of the reasons I advocated for myself to have girls night out. It’s still difficult to see it as self-care, even with the work I’ve done on myself separate from our relationship. Like, my guilt is split between needing time for myself and needing more quality time together since he’s gone for work for long periods of time. As far as the dog goes, we are training him, but he’s still less than 3 months old. So he can’t be left alone for more than 2 hours in the crate.