Please help, this is eating me up! I've spent most of my life single, but for the last year I've been in a serious relationship. She's wonderful and she's so in love with me that she's admitted she wants to marry me. Oh, and she wants me to move away with her when she goes away to grad school. I've definitely never been so into a girl I'm dating, we get along perfectly and love being together. I always thought that when I was finally in a real, serious relationship, other girls wouldn't enter my mind. A good friend told me that he's so in love that he has blinders on to other girls. Not so with me. If anything, I'm more obsessed with other girls - mostly two or three friends from my past who I was too gutless to be honest with - than ever. And it torments me because it makes me question my love for my current girlfriend. So my question is, if you are truly in love and the girl is "the one", do you have blinders on, or will you always be questioning whether you'd be better off with another girl? Another friend of mine once told me that when you have 80% of what you need in one girl all you can see is the 20% your missing in other girls, but when you get with them you realize they only have that 20%. To make matters more complicated, she's moving away to grad school next year and she wants me to go with her. I go back and forth on this. I can go with her, which is risky because I'd have to abandon my current life plan. Or, I could stay where I am and potentially lose her forever. Has anyone been in a similar situation?
fuck a life plan. maybe her mention of marriage is screwin with ya. let it be a thought, but you don't have to commit to that - even if you maintain a serious relationship i say move away with her - unless something more important (is there anything?) is keeping you to your current location
it just sounds like u need to experience being with other girls. It doesnt mean u don't love your current girlfriend, it just means that maybe u're not ready for an exclusive long-term commitment. i had a friend who was in a similar situation some time ago, he had basically always been single, then he met a great girl and they were really in love and all that, moved in together and planned on living together forever. then he went thru a "crisis", realizing they were young, missing out on something and wondering how life would be if he was with another girl. he was too much of a coward to break up, but he was very conspicuously more miserable everyday so eventually she broke up with him. and now he's dating a new girl every month or so, and he seems really happy.
I've never been in this situation before personally. But if I were you I'd try to figure out why or what it is about those other girls you find so attractive versus the serious relationship you already have. List qualities about each person, as well as your emotional responses to them. Do they return that affection or are you a fling to them? If you're a fling to them how does that make you feel? Do you want short sexual-emotional relationships? Or do you want that close-bonding serious relationship. ---- Ask these Q's to yourself. And whatever you choose, just remember beauty fades over time. Also what others have said about long term life goals, if you do decide to move in with your girlfriend make sure you don't hold it against her that you put your academic-career life goals on pause for them. If you see yourself doing that in your "first fight" after the honeymoon lovey-dovetail stage is over, moving in with her for her life plan is a BAD idea. Doesn't mean you have to breakup but it does mean long-distance; and that's hard.
I have interest in other girls. Of course I do, she's the only one I've been with. (Hell, I have interests in some men) And sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be in a relationship with someone else, purely out of curiosity. But I would never ever want to be without her. I wish we could merge into one, so we would never be apart. I don't think you need to experience love with other women; but I do think you need to decide if she's really the person you would want to spend the rest of your life with. On a sidenote, kinda-ish: I think this answer's pure bullshit. You're taking one anecdote and applying it way too broadly. People always want something else, people always want something different. There would be virtually no long term relationships if every time someone had a crisis in theirs they split up. What about all the people who broke up for such reasons and only found a huge void? What about all the people who would do anything to take that one moment of weakness back? Relationships ebb and flow just like hormones or anything else in nature. If the ship's built steady, and the crew's dedicated; it'll weather the storms just fine.
Mm, where? I never said everyone should do what my friend did. I only said the OP's situation reminded me of my friend's. right, i agree that the grass always seems greener elsewhere, and yes sometimes people regret breaking up just cuz they wanted to see what was out there. But i just think that the people who start by thinking "i'm missing out on something" sometimes end up cheating and hurting their partner, so maybe it's better to act responsibly and break up so before u do something stupid like that.
NEVER EVER abandon your own path to success,no matter how much you think you might love that person. Whether she is worth it in the end or not, she ends up with a career and what do you have to show for it? I say follow your own dreams, create your own successes and everything else will fall into place. If it is meant to be then it will be.
Your friend's a smart one. Whether you are always questioning or not is kind of a cop out issue in my opinion since it's basically under your control whether you spend a lot of time worrying about it. Either you like her or you don't. There's ALWAYS going to be other girls. There's ALWAYS going to be some girls out there more beautiful or more awesome from afar than whoever you are with. Love isn't just feelings. A relationship is more than all of that. In the end you make a decision and you either both honor it or you don't.
