Do I stay with my boyfriend?

[hopeesaff]

I have been with my boyfriend for 3 years and we met when we were both 17 so are now 21. I am in my last year of uni studying graphic design and he is an engineer. When I first met him I didn’t initially feel attracted to him but the more I met up and talked to him it felt so easy to speak to him, felt comfortable around him, felt like we had been friends for a really long time. When he told me he was interested in me I must admit I was worried that there wasn’t enough physical attraction but we got on so well (it’s not often I can feel close to someone - especially quickly) that I felt like I should give it a chance and so I did. He was confident, popular, and was a rebel back at school - which was the complete opposite to me so it was all exciting and different to me. We ended up being together and my attraction for him grew. I had never experienced being in love before but I definitely new that I was. We became so close and best friends straight away and we both felt very quickly that it was serious and we really wanted to have a future together. We felt that we were each others best friend, soul mate and partner. I also lost my virginity to his too which made me feel even closer to him.

 

 

Personality differences

 

Over the past few years I have definitely changed a lot. I feel like I know more about who I am and my values/outlook about life. And I’m scared that I am realising that maybe mine and Matt’s are now quite different. I am a very sensitive person, I want to make something of myself and be successful and happy. I feel so interested and passionate about the problems in society and the world but he really is not interested in any of that and I really want to be someone that I can share that with. I worry that we don’t have interesting and inspiring conversations - I don’t really know what to talk about most of the time. He normally does most of the talking - surface topics, other people, etc

 

He can often be quite judgemental and harsh about people, be aggressive especially when driving, his thoughts about money and materialism, to him wealth is everything - always wanting the next new ‘thing’ to show off etc. My problem is - he is so loving and treats me amazing, however I worry that who he is as a person and his views and interests conflict with mine sometimes. He is not passionate about his job, he hates it and is always complaining about it - his Dad owns the company and he doesn’t have any other qualifications to do anything else that will pay as well. So the plan is that he will basically work and live in the same place for the rest of his life.

 

 

Career opportunities

 

I don’t just want a job - I want to have a successful career in graphic design, open myself to exciting opportunities and experience the world - going to different places and meeting interesting people. I know it sounds so cheesy but I all I want to do is live my life doing something that I am passionate about, become something and make a difference. Not just living from pay check to pay check, spending 90% of my life somewhere that I feel is meaningless and mind-numbing just to pay the bills.

 

I don’t know if I am just being too much of a dreamer and idealising something that is so far fetched or if it is my lack of confidence and belief in myself seriously holds me back from living out my dreams. I would be so scared to move somewhere on my own. There’s no guarantee I would even find a designer job anywhere. If me and matt ended our relationship I will most likely end up just working in a shop, feeling depressed and alone, living at home sharing a room with my 13 year old sister. I will never be able to save up to move out, or pay for driving lessons or even buy a car. I have no close friends at home - I’ve ended up drifting away from them through a combination of getting with Matt and moving to uni. I feel that the only support I have is my family which is very small and I’m not really that close to either

 

The thing i’m having a hard to do figure out is - do I love him fundamentally for who he is or do I love how much he loves me? Whenever I am anxious, stressed or depressed about anything I know that I have his love and support and it makes me feel better. It makes me feel comforted and secure knowing that whatever happens he will be there for me and 100% committed to me. He will do anything to make me happy. There is a secure future there for us - live together, have a car and a dog and nice things etc. However, I know that I have confidence issues need to take responsibility for my happiness and my life and stop relying and depending on someone else to make me feel ‘better’ and to assure me of my worth and abilities.

 

I’m just scared that if I do stay i’ll end up resenting him if I end up living in the same place all my life. I’m scared that I will be limiting my career opportunities being stuck in the middle of no where and that I could look back and wish that I had taken the risk of leaving him and the possibility of what could of happened with my career and with Ryan. However at the same time I feel that I lack in confidence to actually make it happen/move somewhere on my own. Feel like I need someone.

 

 

Close To Someone Else

 

Another thing that has caused me to seriously think about my relationship with matt is that I have recently got close to someone else. A guy joined my course at the beginning of September to do his last year here. When I went on my trip with my course a couple of months ago I spent a lot of time getting to know him and have found myself to be very attracted to him and have got very close to him in a short space of time. When I think of Ryan I get this feeling in my stomach, a strong desire to talk to him and to be close to him. He is exactly my type and not only do I find him extremely attractive but I feel a deep connection as well - we just click. That feeling never happens to me (and haven’t since meeting Matt when I was 17) and I usually find it hard to get close to someone but it’s happened so fast. I feel so comfortable to be myself around him and feel like i’ve known him a long time. Not only that but we are so compatible and have very similar outlooks about life and the same passions such as graphic design and the urge to travel and see the world. He is also concerned about important issues like the environment and is a feminist! He is sensitive and intelligent and found that we had really interesting and meaningful conversations. We are so similar in terms our personalities it’s actually crazy - i’ve never met anyone who feels the same way as me and who I feel ‘gets’ me. At uni we would sit next to each other and help each other with our work and then when we were apart we would end up messaging quite a bit.

 

I ended up finding out that he felt some connection to me that he had never really felt with anyone else either however he told me that he wasn’t comfortable thinking like that at the moment because he had just got out of a 3 year relationship too. He also knew about me and matt having problems so told me to just focus on my relationship with him and not to think of anyone outside of it which is right. Also there is only 6 months left on uni and then we would go back to living in different places in the country.

 

 

I Still Feel Like I Love Him

 

But aside from all of what I have said I know that I do love and care for Matt so much, he is my best friend and my rock who has always been there through everything and has accepted me for who I am and all my flaws. I am scared I will never have that again. No one else will fully accept and love me again. It is my fault that I distanced myself from him and I feel like I will lose someone so special and important to me. I feel like I want to cling on to him and for him to never leave me because I won’t be able to cope without him. I know that if I ended it I would instantly panic and regret it and not want to let go. I will feel so sick and that i’ll probably end up begging him to take me back. I don’t want to have to go through this to realise and appreciate what I have and how special our relationship is - I know that it is so why am I still having doubts?

 

I worry that I am just over analysing things way too much and nitpicking all the things that aren’t right. Before I got close with Ryan I never seriously considered leaving Matt. There are definitely things that when I look back on has made me worried because of our differences and also how I never really feel turned on by him. However there is a connection between me and Ryan - we have the same passions and interests, the same sort of values and outlook on life and I also find him really attractive.

 

So why am I questioning my feelings for Matt still? Is it because I met Ryan and it is a case of the grass is greener? Or is it that I’ve met someone who has shown me what I actually desire from a relationship? Do I try really hard with Matt and put loads of effort in to try and get this passion and spark back and therefore lose out completely with someone who could have been my perfect match? Maybe me and matt had these issues and meeting Ryan has made me realise this? If there was no possibility of being with Ryan would I be having all these confusing thoughts in the first place? Have I just outgrown Matt and have coincidentally met someone who is right for me at the same time? What if I left Matt, nothing ended up happening with Ryan and after uni I ended up back at home in cornwall unable to get a design job regretting that I had lost matt?

 

I’m just confused whether this lack of desire or passion is just what happens when you’ve been someone for a long time or if all of this has happened for a reason to show me that Matt is not the right person for me like I thought? Would breaking up with Matt be really hard and scare me because I am completely in love with him and 100% want to be with him, or is it because the thought of him not being in my life anymore scares me so much just because he has been such an amazing, massive part of it? Is it just because the thought of being on my own scares me and that after uni Matt can support me with a house and money? Is it also because after uni I am worried that I will have no friends and be lonely and he is someone that can give me the attention and company? I feel like I rely a lot on this feeling of safety, security and support. So is this just an attachment or something more? Maybe I love and care for him deeply but I am not longer in love with him.. I JUST DON’T KNOW. I know that I do love him but after meeting Ryan and all of this happening I’m just so confused. Why would I be having such intense feelings for another person? I worry that I am not physically attracted to him enough because I never have any desire to kiss him other than a peck and a hug. I know that it upsets him because he feels unwanted. I just don’t know whether this is just what happens when you’ve been with someone for a long time.. that the passion dies down?

 

I know that this is such a long post and that half of the things going on in my head haven't been fully expressed. I'm just so anxious and desperate for guidance right now I dont know what to do

[BlueIris]

I say leave him. Your ages, your very different world views and your different visions of career and leading a life of drive and passion will likely either break this relationship or you will have to sacrifice a great deal of who you are at your core to sustain it. His anger and negativity are also unlivable for a lifetime. The other man has shown you that a deeper connection on many levels is possible one day.

[Danda]

I think you're analyzing it all too much. Truth tends to be simple and straightforward.

 

1. You and your boyfriend are not compatible for a romantic relationship.

2. You seem to feel guilt and obligation just because you and your boyfriend make good friends and he is treats you decently. Guilt and obligation are the wrong reasons to stay in a relationship.

3. Perhaps you fear losing your friendship with Matt if the relationship ends. This is a realistic fear because you'd probably need No Contact and to move on completely, mostly due to the guilt/obligation factors you already know are in the equation. But this is also the wrong reason to stay in a relationship. My ex and I also made great friends, terrible and incompatible as lovers and were together for a little over three years. So as someone who definitely understands the internal dilemma you've likely got going on right now - you won't realize fully that it was right to leave until a while after you've done it. The emotions in this scenario are too intense and painful to really see **** straight when you're in the middle of it.

4. Now you know what being with someone with whom you're actually compatible might feel like it, you got a taste of it. It's going to eat at you from here on out. It's probably a large part of why you're here questioning your relationship in earnest. Take it as a sign from the universe.

 

All in all yeah it's gonna suck. Break ups usually do. The right thing to do is often not the easiest thing to do.

[ktya]

I am in my last year of uni studying graphic design and he is an engineer.

 

Sounds like you bagged a keeper.

 

I was worried that there wasn’t enough physical attraction but we got on so well (it’s not often I can feel close to someone - especially quickly) that I felt like I should give it a chance and so I did. He was confident, popular, and was a rebel back at school -

 

One day you will both get old, and attractiveness will no longer matter. Hard to find someone attractive when your putting their Depends in the garbage.

 

I had never experienced being in love before but I definitely new that I was.

 

Sounds good so far.

 

We felt that we were each others best friend, soul mate and partner. I also lost my virginity to his too which made me feel even closer to him.

 

Again you got a keeper. Hard to find someone you can connect like that.

 

I’m scared that I am realising that maybe mine and Matt’s are now quite different. I am a very sensitive person, I want to make something of myself and be successful and happy. I feel so interested and passionate about the problems in society and the world but he really is not interested in any of that and I really want to be someone that I can share that with.

 

Dont make the mistake of looking for a clone of yourself. You meet that person, and you will probably hate them. A relationship should be about complimentary viewpoints, not being carbon copies of eachother. I've been in relationships where we were carbon copies and they did not end well.

 

I worry that we don’t have interesting and inspiring conversations - I don’t really know what to talk about most of the time. He normally does most of the talking - surface topics, other people, etc

 

Take a look at your mother and father. Or your auntie and uncle. Do they sit around having inspiring conversations all day? Probably not. Chances are they are talking about getting the bills paid, bitching about how someone is being an *******, and how to fix the damned gutters because they keep breaking. Mix in a bit about a mortgage and a line of credit and you have a standard marriage.

 

My problem is - he is so loving and treats me amazing

 

This is not at all a problem. You need to put a bar of soap in a sock, and whack yourself in the head with it. Im not trying to be mean but this makes no sense.

 

Dad owns the company and he doesn’t have any other qualifications to do anything else that will pay as well. So the plan is that he will basically work and live in the same place for the rest of his life.

 

Thats not a problem, thats called STABILITY. Most women are attracted to stability in a man but when they get it they do something oddball to screw it up and regret it for years later, because the rock band guy is always losing his place or the artist cant afford food or the world backpacking traveller refuses to even eat in a decent restaurant because he hates paying more than 60 cents for a meal because thats the price in Thailand.

 

Careful what you wish for, you might get it and you just might not like it. You bagged an engineer who works for his dad's company that he will inherit one day.

 

 

I don’t just want a job - I want to have a successful career in graphic design, open myself to exciting opportunities and experience the world

 

My sister and her former best friend are graphic designers. She has lived in the same house for 12 years and has a wonderful son and a husband. Being a graphic designer means a lot of hours sitting on Adobe Acrobat, not experiencing the world, unless your doing it on your secondary monitor on your computer while you are racing to meet deadline and you have designers' block and just cant figure out what will work.

 

I'm not dissing your career choice, I have done a quite a bit of it myself in a sundry capacity because I'm in marketing and sales and sometimes the best way to get it done right is to do it yourself. A good designer is hard to find. But a good designer does not travel the world so you can't reach them and they can't get their projects done on time or with proper consultation. I think your being quite unrealistic.

 

If travelling the globe is your thing, you might look into being a public health nurse and getting a position with an NGO like Oxfam.

 

from pay check to pay check, spending 90% of my life somewhere that I feel is meaningless and mind-numbing just to pay the bills.

 

You chose graphic design as a career. Get used to it. When you have done your one thousandth restaurant menu and advertisement in the local paper for the local 60 year old financial planner and tried to convince him that his advertisement looks like it was made in the 60s, but he wants it to look like it looked when he first ran it in the 60s and wants you to recreate a font that has long since perished, you will probably understand that I'm not way off base.

 

There’s no guarantee I would even find a designer job anywhere. If me and matt ended our relationship I will most likely end up just working in a shop, feeling depressed and alone, living at home sharing a room with my 13 year old sister.

 

Hence the stability is good for you. Sounds like he does well and this gives you freedom. The picture you paint here is that without him, you'd be in the doldrums just like you are afraid of. Most graphic designers I know want to freelance. Those freelance designers have husbands who take care of the bills. The ones that dont, do as you say, and toil long hours into the night in some crummy shop that also does color copies, or they land a dream job with a municipality where they actually get benefits and decent working conditions.

 

 

It makes me feel comforted and secure knowing that whatever happens he will be there for me and 100% committed to me. He will do anything to make me happy. There is a secure future there for us - live together, have a car and a dog and nice things etc.

 

Again, whats the problem? Hes 100% committed to you, he will do anything to make you happy. But you are looking for more. Again, you need to be realistic. You could traverse into an open relationship where you could meet some man who will take you fire dancing in Bolivia but I highly doubt that your Matt is the kind of guy who would go for that, another girl would snap him up in a heartbeat.

 

I’m just scared that if I do stay i’ll end up resenting him if I end up living in the same place all my life.

 

You know, these days a lot of people actually dream of being able to stay in the same place for their life and growing a family with a successful husband. Its not that bad, you just have to make some friends outside your relationship and get involved in your community.

 

I’m scared that I will be limiting my career opportunities being stuck in the middle of no where and that I could look back and wish that I had taken the risk of leaving him and the possibility of what could of happened with my career and with Ryan.

 

No idea who Ryan is, your BF is named Matt. Stop thinking of Ryan. Matt is treating you like his queen in waiting.

 

You bounce off and move to NYC or some metropolitan shmanchy place and your going to go up against hordes of people like you who want a career in graphic design who are better than you, have more experience than you, and sure you could win the lottery but chances are your in for a long hard slog and you'll be longing for the days with Matt and his boring life and his dad's business for quite some time. Sure you might hit the jackpot somewhere but yes you are taking a much larger risk by being restless and wanting the sun the moon and the stars.

 

I'd love to be a multimillionaire stockbroker like Gekko, taking down public companies like water. But the problem is I'd have to be like Gekko, and know the people Gekko does. Unfortunately, they already know Gekko, so why the hell would they need me.

 

 

Close To Someone Else

 

Given everything you have said that I have responded to above, this is your biggest mistake. You have a great man who is committed to you 100% who will do anything to make you happy who is successful and is in line to inherit his dad's business and he's guaranteed a job for life.

 

Hate to sound condescending, but DUH. Some budding graphic designer is not what you need. That's YOU. You need a guy who can support your career so you dont end up working in a sweatshop for peanuts for the next five years hoping for a break.

 

Ryan could make a great friend, someone to talk shop with. NOT a lifetime partner. If I got together with a broker or financial planner I'd eventually get sick to my stomach talking about how bloody oil spot prices are at amazing lows and the clients are all over the map. I talk about that at work, I dont need it when I come home.

 

When I think of Ryan I get this feeling in my stomach, a strong desire to talk to him and to be close to him. He is exactly my type and not only do I find him extremely attractive but I feel a deep connection as well - we just click.

 

Thats because he'd make a great friend.

 

we are so compatible and have very similar outlooks about life and the same passions such as graphic design and the urge to travel and see the world. He is also concerned about important issues like the environment and is a feminist!

 

Again he'd make a great friend. You dont want to talk shop with your partner, you will either learn to hate your career or hate your partner.

 

And dont trust a man who is declared as a "feminist". He's a man, men who fight for the other team are typically full of crap and just want to get into your pants. I'm not saying guys who are into equality or who arent chauvenists are bad news, but a guy who says he is a feminist is pretty suspect. We real men call them manginas. They manage to get into your pants but will burn you pretty bad. Jian Ghomeshi was a self described feminist, in womens' studies. But he ended up choking women out and slapping them around in his car.

 

i’ve never met anyone who feels the same way as me and who I feel ‘gets’ me.

 

Again, he'd make a great friend. A mangina feminist who probably drinks red wine and is a clone of you. Personally, I would be suspect of the guy.

 

But aside from all of what I have said I know that I do love and care for Matt so much, he is my best friend and my rock who has always been there through everything and has accepted me for who I am and all my flaws.

 

Chances are he'd be pretty upset that your dithering between him and Ryan. I wouldn't tell him, I doubt he'd accept that flaw. Best bet is to strictly limit your time with Ryan to hanging out in groups and to ditch the private conversations. If Matt finds out about this guy, he will walk and another girl will snap him up in a nanosecond. You'll regret it for the rest of your life.

 

I worry that I am just over analysing things way too much and nitpicking all the things that aren’t right. Before I got close with Ryan I never seriously considered leaving Matt.

 

Um, ya think? I got this from skimming your message in the first ten seconds. Ryan is up to something, I highly doubt he is everything he is carrying out to be. Matt on the other hand, I think is an open book, what you see is what you get.

 

 

Sorry to be harsh girl. I think your answer is self explanatory. Ditch Ryan, he's trouble. Matt is the man you'll be happy you stuck with in 15 years.

Edited January 6, 2015 by ktya

[Light Breeze]

It's absolutely mind boggling that a number of "good guys" who treat women like queens being dumped because they are boring, stable, etc. and being replaced by more exciting men.

[Els]

OP, I have mixed feelings about your post. On the one hand, I do think that everyone, regardless of how compatible, are going to have different views on something or other. No two people have the same opinions on everything. What matters is that you know how to agree to disagree and respect each others' views, and that your basic mindsets align.

 

About your career, I think it is a bit preemptive to dump a good boyfriend for a hypothetical bridge that has not been crossed yet. It is possible that in the future you may need to choose between a relationship and your career. Cross that bridge when it comes.

 

But... if you're having strong feelings for someone else and feel uninspired with your boyfriend, I do think you should leave. It's the right thing to do, before it crosses the line into cheating. You're young, you're not married, you have no children. There is no reason to stay with someone just for security.

 

Re: interesting conversations, I do have to say this... I've been with my guy for over 5 years, and we still do have them. Of course it isn't all fun and laughs and roses all the time - but those are still important. They are part of what carries us through the tough times and the practical **** we have to deal with in everyday life. If this is important to you, do not settle for less.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Elswyth