Already committed, but now afraid
Hi everyone,
I'm having a dilemma with my current boyfriend. He lives in a time zone with a 13 hour difference, and we've been long distance for about 8 months now. He goes to college there, and I'm about to graduate college here in a few months and am applying for Peace Corps (we decided our relationship cannot hold each other back from what we want to do). Things were great while we were together before the distance, but things have been pretty rocky since. Since we have no definite end-point in sight (and depending on where I go after graduating, the next time we could just meet at all may be 1 year from now), it's really hard right now to keep up our relationship (from my side. He seems totally committed). I really care about him, and I can imagine being together once our lives settle down--but that may well be 3 or more years from now, and right now, committment is scaring me. I've always been the type of person to only want a serious relationship, but I've found I'm just not very good at long-term LDRs. The main problem is, no matter what we do, he ends up feeling like a best friend, not a boyfriend (and we've tried Skype sex and a lot of other things too, so it's not like I haven't tried anything).
He came to visit earlier this month for about 2 weeks. The first 2/3 of it was pretty rocky--I felt so much pressure to have all these amazing feelings for him, but I still felt like I was seeing my best friend after 7 months of separation. Honestly, I feel like I have cold feet with our relationship--I feel like I'm tied down too quickly. I love him, but I don't know if I'm ready to stop dating a bit and getting other experiences (we're both 21, and I know people change so much in this time). It's not that I want to just have flings with other people, but I can't deal with the pressure to feel for him the same way he does for me right now. I talked to him about taking a break since we have no idea where we are both going in the future, but to him, it's basically all or nothing. The last few days he was here, my feelings felt like they were back to normal, but now he's gone, and I'm back to not feeling the same. 3 or 4 days just isn't enough to sustain the rest of the year, and then the year after that and after that.
I know I sound a bit selfish and am asking more than is realistic, but in an ideal world, we would stop being an official couple, but stay in touch and be supportive of each other's life goals (because although we love each other, they just don't match up right now, and won't for several years). Now I feel like I envy my friends who had done this relationship from the start--date in person, not do an LDR, but still visit each other and accept that what happens happens. My problem is, I feel like I'm in too deep now, and I don't know how to approach him about this. We communicate a lot, but our 3 hour talk about this while he was here got us nowhere. I'm just really freaked out right now.
Has anyone else experienced this? What did you do and how did it go? Do you have any advice?
I'm having a dilemma with my current boyfriend. He lives in a time zone with a 13 hour difference, and we've been long distance for about 8 months now. He goes to college there, and I'm about to graduate college here in a few months and am applying for Peace Corps (we decided our relationship cannot hold each other back from what we want to do). Things were great while we were together before the distance, but things have been pretty rocky since. Since we have no definite end-point in sight (and depending on where I go after graduating, the next time we could just meet at all may be 1 year from now), it's really hard right now to keep up our relationship (from my side. He seems totally committed). I really care about him, and I can imagine being together once our lives settle down--but that may well be 3 or more years from now, and right now, committment is scaring me. I've always been the type of person to only want a serious relationship, but I've found I'm just not very good at long-term LDRs. The main problem is, no matter what we do, he ends up feeling like a best friend, not a boyfriend (and we've tried Skype sex and a lot of other things too, so it's not like I haven't tried anything).
He came to visit earlier this month for about 2 weeks. The first 2/3 of it was pretty rocky--I felt so much pressure to have all these amazing feelings for him, but I still felt like I was seeing my best friend after 7 months of separation. Honestly, I feel like I have cold feet with our relationship--I feel like I'm tied down too quickly. I love him, but I don't know if I'm ready to stop dating a bit and getting other experiences (we're both 21, and I know people change so much in this time). It's not that I want to just have flings with other people, but I can't deal with the pressure to feel for him the same way he does for me right now. I talked to him about taking a break since we have no idea where we are both going in the future, but to him, it's basically all or nothing. The last few days he was here, my feelings felt like they were back to normal, but now he's gone, and I'm back to not feeling the same. 3 or 4 days just isn't enough to sustain the rest of the year, and then the year after that and after that.
I know I sound a bit selfish and am asking more than is realistic, but in an ideal world, we would stop being an official couple, but stay in touch and be supportive of each other's life goals (because although we love each other, they just don't match up right now, and won't for several years). Now I feel like I envy my friends who had done this relationship from the start--date in person, not do an LDR, but still visit each other and accept that what happens happens. My problem is, I feel like I'm in too deep now, and I don't know how to approach him about this. We communicate a lot, but our 3 hour talk about this while he was here got us nowhere. I'm just really freaked out right now.
Has anyone else experienced this? What did you do and how did it go? Do you have any advice?
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