My boyfriend likes to finalize our future, whereas I am stuck in the now...?

[Strawberry Fields]

My boyfriend and I have talked about our future together a few times and we eventually want to get married and start a family together. I have kept our future in mind and by that I mean the general idea of it. Yes, I do want to be with him and eventually marry and start a family with him, but I am not finalizing fine little details about it. I am just not the kind of person to look into my future and daydream about little details. I have a general idea in my head, which is marriage and family, but in order to even get to that point I have to achieve a balanced foundation for that future: my education and career. Therefore, I focus on what I need to do now and in my near future in order to get to my more distant future (marriage, family).

 

Now, does this seem ridiculous? Is my mentality and opinion about that completely obscure?

 

As of right now, my boyfriend and I are both Seniors in college and we both plan on going to grad school - basically the marriage and family future is not in the cards right now. I have told him previously that I am not one to look to the future and finalize little details like he does. The reason why I do not do this is because I may finalize and pin-point every detail, whether its what the house looks like, the furniture, the design, whatever - therefore putting this "picture perfect" image in my head of my future - then something changes, and the end result does not end up looking the inputted image in my head and I get discouraged.

 

Now, with that said, last night he said that he wants to move and asked my opinion about it and I said, "I don't know, I'm not worried about that right now." Then he tries to play devil's advocate with me: "Well what if I wanted to move down south, would you come with me?" and I reply, "Look, I don't know, this is not something I am thinking about right now. I can say that I have never once said to myself that I would like to move down south though." - Then he started to go off, basically blowing up on me, "You wouldn't move down with me, you don't care, you are so ignorant." I respond, "No, I never said any of that - as of right now I do not want to move because I see nothing wrong with this area and quite frankly, you're going too far ahead in the future for me to keep up with." - He continued to blow up, calling me "thick headed" and then he ignored me for the rest of the night.

 

This morning he leaves me a message, "I do not think this weekend is going to work out - I am going to come during the week next week for a few days, but what do you care, you don't give a **** about me anyway." Note: I am not able to meet up with him during the week next week since I have classes all during the week.

 

I respond to him, "I never said I don't care about you. I told you I was looking forward to this weekend when we first planned it (2 weeks ago). I do not understand what your problem is and you should talk to me about it. We are not kids here, we can confront each other about our problems and talk through it." - He did not respond and will probably ignore me for the rest of the day.

 

Am I going crazy here, or like... is he just crazy? I really am at a loss for words and unfortunately this is not the first time something like this has happened. I really do not know how to approach this and I think there is nothing I can do other than wait for him to approach me. I have a feeling we are just not on the same level here, whether he's being completely immature or I am, something is not matching up here.

 

It just infuriates me that I have to worry about something like this now. He is arguing with me about something that is so far out of reach right now. Why does he find it necessary to finalize future plans like that? I am just at a loss for words.

 

Opinions, anyone? Perhaps how I should go about this? Maybe I am doing something wrong and I do not realize it? Please, any input is appreciated.

[Geishawhelk]

Well, from a plain simple and honest Buddhist perspective - you are right, and he is misguided....

 

And he's behaving like an infant, throwing a petulant dicky fit like that.

For goodness' sake, you're both young and embarking on what will hopefully be a long, successful, profitable and enjoyable life.

 

To live outside the sphere of your immediate control, means your focus is misplaced.

By all means make plans.

But keep them on a backburner. Don't toss them, brandy 'flambeh'-style, when the table's not even set yet.....

 

I have to say, I'm with you on this one, 100%.

[Strawberry Fields]

Well, from a plain simple and honest Buddhist perspective - you are right, and he is misguided....

 

And he's behaving like an infant, throwing a petulant dicky fit like that.

For goodness' sake, you're both young and embarking on what will hopefully be a long, successful, profitable and enjoyable life.

 

To live outside the sphere of your immediate control, means your focus is misplaced.

By all means make plans.

But keep them on a backburner. Don't toss them, brandy 'flambeh'-style, when the table's not even set yet.....

 

I have to say, I'm with you on this one, 100%.

 

 

Geishawhelk,

 

Thank you for your quick response. I am having a hard time figuring out how to approach this situation. Will he eventually grow out of this, or will he be like this forever? Perhaps he is not confident about our relationship and asks these "what if" type questions hoping that I respond saying "Wherever you go, I go - whatever you want, I want," etc. and when I don't respond like that, he gets upset and lashes out. This is about the only thing I have come up with thus far.

[Geishawhelk]

It's actually very difficult to cut through the childish petulance until it's had a chance to calm down on its own.

 

I'll be completely up-front with you:

You sound a lot more mature than he is, and your head seems to be screwed on really well, whereas he seems to dwell in a romanticised realm of an ideal scenario which he obviously hasn't thought through....

 

He's dreaming about marriage, families and children....

 

Ok, let's take it down to the wire:

Tell me, if you're both working towards qualifications and careers, children provide a big interruption to ambition.... have you thought about what this wonderful dream actually entails?

 

You're going to have to suspend work for a while, and lose out on salary, possible advancement, promotion and suck up a loss of funds, liberty, health and freedom of movement - both physical and emotional/practical....

 

Has he considered whether he thinks he'll be earning enough to fund a mortgage, pay for the car, and keep you at home all at the same time?

 

Is this what you want?

 

Strikes me there may well be a scenario here that he hasn't thought through.

 

My advice to you would be to leave him alone.

 

Let him get over his little tantrum, and ignore his fit of temper.

Get on with your own plans and enjoy your weekend.

He's biting his nose to spite his face, and that's his problem, because I don't think you're on the same page.

 

When he finally calms down, I think you need to confront him about laying imaginary scenarios infront of you, and expecting to sort the future out on the basis of hypothesis alone.

Put the above little argument to him - about funding a family and all that entails.

Tell him to man up and stick his nose in the soup of reality, before growing roses round the door.

[BUENG1]

My boyfriend and I have talked about our future together a few times and we eventually want to get married and start a family together. I have kept our future in mind and by that I mean the general idea of it. Yes, I do want to be with him and eventually marry and start a family with him, but I am not finalizing fine little details about it. I am just not the kind of person to look into my future and daydream about little details. I have a general idea in my head, which is marriage and family, but in order to even get to that point I have to achieve a balanced foundation for that future: my education and career. Therefore, I focus on what I need to do now and in my near future in order to get to my more distant future (marriage, family).

 

Now, does this seem ridiculous? Is my mentality and opinion about that completely obscure?

 

As of right now, my boyfriend and I are both Seniors in college and we both plan on going to grad school - basically the marriage and family future is not in the cards right now. I have told him previously that I am not one to look to the future and finalize little details like he does. The reason why I do not do this is because I may finalize and pin-point every detail, whether its what the house looks like, the furniture, the design, whatever - therefore putting this "picture perfect" image in my head of my future - then something changes, and the end result does not end up looking the inputted image in my head and I get discouraged.

 

Now, with that said, last night he said that he wants to move and asked my opinion about it and I said, "I don't know, I'm not worried about that right now." Then he tries to play devil's advocate with me: "Well what if I wanted to move down south, would you come with me?" and I reply, "Look, I don't know, this is not something I am thinking about right now. I can say that I have never once said to myself that I would like to move down south though." - Then he started to go off, basically blowing up on me, "You wouldn't move down with me, you don't care, you are so ignorant." I respond, "No, I never said any of that - as of right now I do not want to move because I see nothing wrong with this area and quite frankly, you're going too far ahead in the future for me to keep up with." - He continued to blow up, calling me "thick headed" and then he ignored me for the rest of the night.

 

This morning he leaves me a message, "I do not think this weekend is going to work out - I am going to come during the week next week for a few days, but what do you care, you don't give a **** about me anyway." Note: I am not able to meet up with him during the week next week since I have classes all during the week.

 

I respond to him, "I never said I don't care about you. I told you I was looking forward to this weekend when we first planned it (2 weeks ago). I do not understand what your problem is and you should talk to me about it. We are not kids here, we can confront each other about our problems and talk through it." - He did not respond and will probably ignore me for the rest of the day.

 

Am I going crazy here, or like... is he just crazy? I really am at a loss for words and unfortunately this is not the first time something like this has happened. I really do not know how to approach this and I think there is nothing I can do other than wait for him to approach me. I have a feeling we are just not on the same level here, whether he's being completely immature or I am, something is not matching up here.

 

It just infuriates me that I have to worry about something like this now. He is arguing with me about something that is so far out of reach right now. Why does he find it necessary to finalize future plans like that? I am just at a loss for words.

 

Opinions, anyone? Perhaps how I should go about this? Maybe I am doing something wrong and I do not realize it? Please, any input is appreciated.

 

Its hard to tell how far your relationship has progressed from your post but you've said you want to get married and have kids with him. But I think his concerns are valid, things like where your going to live if you get married aren't small concerns. Especially when you both might have decisions to make that might harm your careers in order to stay together. I don't think asking these types of questions are unreasonable. I know several people who turned down job offers, grad schools offers so they could continue a relationship with someone from college and have regret it, I don't think its unreasonable to try and gauge your partners interest in the future and you maybe should think about it more seriously.