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@N-lightMike : you are perfectly on track and exactly the right place at the right time. Playing in time was no easy thing for me. It is still not. I am a daily practitioner of rhythm training. Initially I was where you are. I thought there was something wrong with me and that I would not get it. Because I loved guitar (and know why I do), was able to toss out my expectations as they clearly where killing my fun quotient, muster persistence, oh…did I mention expectation, oh…yes I did, it bears repeating as this is what allowed me to get down into the depths of the process, embracing the simplicity of a single note played in time with the metronome. In doing this the satisfaction of success came back and that allowed my attention span to increase, my mind to relax. Removing the tension from my mind allowed my fingers to darn near magically become rhythmically aligned with the metronome. That is when I would venture out and start introducing complexity to the rhythm going form quarters to eighths and back, quarters to triplets and back, and this one, Eighths to Triplets, that took a long while before I could move between them at will, intuitively and on the beat. And once there, a whole universe starts to open up by adding space to triplets and eights as dynamics come it to play to accentuate the space. When this was under finger I would move to strums, following the same recipe. You will come back to your songs and understand them in a new way after you have gone down the rhythm road. Slow is always better than fast. Let tension be your guide as to when to increase speed. Don’t hate it, embrace it as part of the process while letting go of what you think you should be able to play. I look forward to hearing more of your experience as you reframe from frustration to curiosity and effort.