'I Can't Stop Picking Fights With My Amazing Boyfriend!'

Intimacy and vulnerability depend on forgiving yourself, every day.

Interior (1955) by Helen Lundeberg

Dear Polly,

I am a soon to be 30-year-old woman in a two-year, loving relationship with a kind, funny, gentle man. I love him a lot and want to be with him for a long time. I'm writing to you because my pain and shame is haunting me in this relationship and I can't seem to shake it loose.

I grew up really close to my pare…