“I Got Into My First Relationship at 27 — Are They All Going to Be This Draining?”

She’s 27, in her first real relationship, and exhausted in a way she didn’t expect. Not from fights. From the constant low hum of managing someone else’s moods on top of her own. She wanted to know if this was the deal — or if she had picked the wrong person to learn on.

We forwarded the question to therapists, long-married friends, and a handful of recently-divorced readers. The answers split almost perfectly down the middle.

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The therapists were kind but blunt. A healthy relationship should not feel like a second job. Some adjustment in the first year is normal. Sustained drain is data.

The long-married readers were gentler. “Year one of my marriage I cried in a Sobeys parking lot twice,” one wrote. “Year fourteen, I have not cried in a parking lot in a decade. It does change. But only if both people are doing the work.”

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The recently-divorced readers were the most useful. None of them said “leave.” All of them said the same thing in different words: pay attention to whether you feel more like yourself with them, or less. That number doesn’t lie.

If you’re asking the question at all, you already know something. The next step is figuring out what it is.