My First Love.. Stay Together, or Date elsewhere?

[dmaestro3]

I have a bit of a tricky situation here. Here is my story.. me+gf met in freshman year of college. She's my first girlfriend (was a loser in high school(?)), anyways we've been together 20 months now and things are getting serious. They've been serious. So we did the whole freshman year dating, summer, sophomore year dating, now we're both on "co-op" which is 6 months of work. So we go back to school (Boston) in January, and we both can't wait to be "together" again. We get along very very well. We both love each other. We have a lot of similar interests. The only problem that seems to come up has to do with the amount of time we spend together. In my opinion its too great. In hers, its too little. I feel like I am missing out on opportunities to meet other people/make new friends. We struggled a lot with that in the beginning now things are better and we are working out a balance. The issue is.. I am not sure if I will live an unhappy life or have a more difficult marriage if I don't date other people. I definitely see her as marriage potential, the issue now is things are too serious now. I am not sure what we should do. What are your opinions on this topic? Any people that married their first bf/gf. She has dated before, which may explain why she knows how much she loves me. Her family really likes me too, mine likes her a lot as well. My family feels I should date other people, my parents went through being their first serious couple and ended up having 5 years of counseling. My only complaint about the relationship is her seemingly constant insecurity, and my need to reassure her of my love. It gets old, yet she is an amazing person. I also sometimes feel like I can't have any space. We talk all day at work, then at night sometimes. If we're together we'll spend 3-4 nights sleeping over. I'm not even 20 yet, she just turned 20. Am I too young for this, do I need to see what other people are like? I have so many questions, theres more detail, but this is something to get started with... Thanks! Oh the reason its in LDR is because we are 1.5 hours apart now (we only see each other on weekends mostly). We will be together for 6 months again, then we will be back on co-op for another 6 months in 2005. I will mostly likely go to California and we will be 3,000 miles away. This seems like a good opportunity to date others. I feel like no one will compare with her and I don't want to hurt her (I"m sure you've heard this before). Help me out here?

[dyermaker]

I think you should recognize a good thing when you have one, it's a lot better to be realistic about things the way they are, than to realize it when you've already given it up.