relationship advice!!
Does anyone who’s been married or in a long term relationship have any advice for me?? I’ve been with the same person for 4 years and I feel like I love them deeply, but we are still in college. I wonder sometimes if we are being foolish thinking that we can be sure of each other so young. On one hand, I can’t imagine finding someone more kind or thoughtful or supportive than them, but on the other hand, we have our dissimilarities and disagreements. I don’t want either of us to miss out on anything in our lives…but what if being together is exactly how we don’t miss out on anything because we love each other? I’m not necessarily thinking about breaking up with them. It’s just been on my mind.
What would you miss out on if you experience them together? Being a couple does not mean being the same…it does mean you both need to compromise but if there is stuff you cannot compromise on then the question becomes can you live with that difference? Could you manage without each other if one was in a high power job flying off or travelling to meetings and similar elsewhere in the world while the other stays at home looking after kids…how will you deal with the position of having no money – pay cheque to pay cheque? How will you cope with late nights and early mornings? OK you will not know the answer now but they are things that you may need to consider.
You may alternatively go for the ‘what the hell’ approach. Dive in, take the chance its right and live for now. Have some plan but make it flexible.
Most of all be true to yourself. You will never know where a relationship goes but you can manage your response to those changes to make it the best you can.
Finally if it is right then work at it….don’t forget the things that made the two of you start a relationship, the gifts, the words, the texts, pictures or plain madness around each other. Don’t worry about the future, be flexible, compromise but most of all – talk. Talk about feelings, work, the mundane things that go on day by day…this is the most important thing…communicate. Remember that communication involves listening and not just talking or shouting.
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My husband and I met when I was in college. He was a 27 year old divorcee and I was a 21 year old English major who had never been in a relationship longer than 3 months.
We are opposites. I’m introverted, he’s not. I’m organized, he’s chaos. I like exploring, he likes his bubble. I go to bed early, he stays up late. Planning the wedding was tough because we don’t share any loves or hobbies. We met by accident at a coffee shop/ bar hybrid.
But though we are different, we fit. It just…works. We balance. His baggage fits with mine. And though we bicker all the time, we aren’t ever really serious. In our years together we’ve maybe only had 3 genuine fights. One was about how to remodel the kitchen, one was me telling him to either decide he was ready for another committed relationship or we needed to go our separate ways, and the third was at midnight in a low signal area about a move I wanted to play in a game of Scrabble.
And sure there are other people I meet that I’m attracted to. But when I think about not being with my husband, I just can’t imagine it. I can’t see how anyone else in the world would put up with my temper or sarcasm. Who else could essentially be my human quaalude?
I knew from the night we met that there was something about him I couldn’t put my finger on. I just felt connected to him. We met as completely independent adults who do our own thing. My mom thinks it’s weird that I’ll go see movies without him or he will go to parties without me. We just…work.
I don’t know if this helps or not. I never worried about whether or not I was missing out on anything just because I met him so young. I never had any reservations which is why I got so mad when he wouldn’t commit. His marriage was a complete disaster so he was gunshy. I had to tell him that I wouldn’t date him forever and he’d have to take the same steps with me that he took with her. And he came to his senses and realized I was worth the risk. And here we are.
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