Talking about the future?

[NikkiP]

So today I called Ryan on his lunch break and we were talking while I was making copies or something. He was totally being adorable and playing soccer with himself and being the sports announcer too. (yes, he's a nerd, but he's my nerd and I love him to pieces!) So he said his full name, and given that I don't hear his last name very often I just kind of chuckled and was like baby you have such a funny last name. And he was like "you're not looking forward to being called Mrs. _____ are you?" It totally made me smile.

So I'm wondering, how far into your future do you and your SO have planned? We haven't really talked about much more than being in the same city (I'm not quite ready to live with anyone yet) so what about you?

Have they expressed their feelings without you really discussing it?

[xMesmerize124]

We have talked about our future a lot, honestly more than my liking
We are currently engaged, so i guess it's a given we are going to talk about our married life and babies
But i'm honestly worried about all that. My last name, my address, my environment that i am so used to, and my circle of friends is all going to change
Then lastly babies..WTHECK how am i suppose to raise a kid?!
Talking about the future with your SO is super fun and exciting but once you lay down before falling asleep and really think about the future it can be a scary thing (at least for me)

[paulawriteslove]

Me and my boyfriend have talked about our future a lot! We have talked about what age we want to move closer together, get engaged, get married, and have kids. I have no doubt that my boyfriend is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. But I love when he says cute little things like, "Good night Mrs. ____" So adorable!

[mllebamako]

From pretty early on, we talked about the future a lot. With him being from such a different culture, I wanted to know early on what his stance was on various things. So we would talk about hypothetical situation, like...what would you do if our daughter did this? Or how do you imagine this?

We often talked about hypotheticals but for concrete future plans it's a bit more complicated. He doesn't mind listening to my plans for me/us and telling me what he thinks of them but he rarely comes up with his own. This is mainly a cultural thing- he is Muslim and they believe predestination so any future talk we have is followed by "inch'allah", meaning "If God wills it". It almost becomes like a superstitious reflex, you wouldn't want to be so bold to assume you have total control over your own future...so you add that phrase on. I have even started doing it! I like it because it reminds me that there are things that are out of my control!

[milaya]

After we had dated for around 2 months, we started to talk about the future a bit - more like "are we on the same page" kind of thing. If we wanted children, if we wanted to get married and I also worried if his parents would accept me (being non-Japanese and all).

Now we're engaged so yes we do have talks about the future. Especially where we want to live in Japan.
Lately he's also started being more direct about future things like: "Can you write my last name? (The Japanese characters) Sooner or later I think you'll need it". He even offered to teach me to write it the last time he was here. (He has some difficult characters) But told him I didn't need it, yet.

Or a discussion we had some weeks ago about... green tea.
Me: "Green tea is okay... but I have no real interest."
Him: "You need to become interested... Japanese..."
Me: "I'm not Japanese, and I will never be Japanese."
Him: "You will. If you marry a Japanese and live in Japan."
Me: "Then I'll still be Danish, besides who am I going to marry?" (Yes, we're engaged, but we're the kind of couple who still says "If we're together in a year...")
Him: *points at himself*

[LadyMarchHare]

The furthest we've talked is him saying one day he wants to marry me and have me be the mother of his children. I've just talked about moving, I'm not really a firm believer of looking too far down the road (best I'll do is a year) because I find it stresses me out. And I think it's good for the both of us to know we still want to be together but leave the details for when we go to cross the bridges assigned these things.

[Caitlin2009]

we talk about it alot, even as far as talking about being in our 100's arguing over who stole each others false teeth lmao

[Darth_Taco]

We started to...but it got weird and awkward @_@. We just agreed to wait at until we're at least 25 before marriage gets brought up again. I really am a man ;D. We have discussed what we want for ourselves though. I'll leave it up to him to mention what he wants for his own. His future career can leave him a potential millionaire though, so I'm stick to him ;D. (that and I love him :P)

As for my own, I am thinking of a really math-based career. I've pretty much killed my dream career of being a doctor because of my drug addiction. I'd still love to do it. If I somehow can get into medschool, I am going for ibogaine treatment to deal with my addiction permanently and going for my dream. If not, I've been thinking about something like accounting or financial counseling. Once I have monies, I wanna open a nonprofit organization. Not sure what yet, there's so much I feel strongly about. I plan to have kids. If I can do it biologically, I'm keeping my uterus until I finish giving birth. Then immediate hysterectomy! If not, I'm getting it removed and adopting out of the foster care system. Either way, I wanna be a foster parent so badly. Still not sure if I wanna get married one day. It's at "eh...depends on who" right now. As for other surgeries and whatnot, undecided >.>...<.<...>.>...

[Caitlin2009]

We started to...but it got weird and awkward @_@. We just agreed to wait at until we're at least 25 before marriage gets brought up again. I really am a man ;D. We have discussed what we want for ourselves though. I'll leave it up to him to mention what he wants for his own. His future career can leave him a potential millionaire though, so I'm stick to him ;D. (that and I love him :P)

As for my own, I am thinking of a really math-based career. I've pretty much killed my dream career of being a doctor because of my drug addiction. I'd still love to do it. If I somehow can get into medschool, I am going for ibogaine treatment to deal with my addiction permanently and going for my dream. If not, I've been thinking about something like accounting or financial counseling. Once I have monies, I wanna open a nonprofit organization. Not sure what yet, there's so much I feel strongly about. I plan to have kids. If I can do it biologically, I'm keeping my uterus until I finish giving birth. Then immediate hysterectomy! If not, I'm getting it removed and adopting out of the foster care system. Either way, I wanna be a foster parent so badly. Still not sure if I wanna get married one day. It's at "eh...depends on who" right now. As for other surgeries and whatnot, undecided >.>...<.<...>.>...

awww you can still be a doctor, you just gotta be careful that you dont overdo it with your work to wanna start up again, you can defiantly do it if you put your mind to it

[Karringtyn]

Right from the beginning I knew that he was the one..the little comments started....and then we knew we were on the same page. I didn't want to be with someone who wanted to casually date.....for me..it had to be a future...

ya know...being old like me and all...haha (sarcasm)

[nicole]

we never talked about it at all, but recently, it's all we talk about. We talk about our wedding, visa/greencard issues, what type of house we want, how many kids, how we'll raise them, and how we're still going to be holding hands when we're like 100 and torturing the grandkids

If we have a boy, I've already banned my SO from taking him hunting or giving him a knife. I am dead set against having weapons in the house. My SO has a knife which I have learned to tolerate, but coming from a country where possessing weapons is illegal, it's hard to grasp my kid could potentially go out and buy a gun at 18 O_O not in my house!

and last night we were talking about vaccinations. My kids are going to be walking pin cushions I swear! and we were talking about immunity parties and stuff too because we're nerds sometimes I am excited about having kids, sometimes I am like "I have to have this parasite growing inside me for 9 months, then go through hours of labour to give birth to a little wailing thing which won't shut up and go to sleep" Thankfully my SO thinks it's funny rather then take it the wrong way.

[Silviar]

We've spoken quite a bit about our future. As my boyfriend is from another country, we spoke a lot about cultural differences. He's the one who brought up getting married and being together first, which I thought was super cute and it was nice. I didn't want to rush him, especially since at that point I was separated but not divorced from my then-husband.

For us, thinking about the future is basically a necessity from the outset as we have to consider not just moving and merging lives, but how we'll explain and prove things to the government so we can be together.

That is the part that frustrates and scares me a little. I don't want to be denied my sweetheart because of red tape.

[elina]

Yeah, we've talked about our future loads.. especially lately. We want to close the distance next summer so we needed to figure out who's moving and where, which was quite exhausting. Well, really exhausting. Guess that's sorted now but we still need to talk about it.

We've talked about getting engaged, getting married, what type of house we'd like to live in and having kids. Not long ago we narrowed down some names we both like for our children and made a list so we'll remember them all when the time comes And if I've seen some really cute couple in their 80's or something holding hands, I've told him and said "that's what we'll be like when we're 80 "

He's the one I'm going to spend the rest of my life with, kinda love planning our future

[Micah]

We have already talked about the future a lot. In fact, the last time I went to visit him, he showed me a house he was thinking of buying and wanted my approval. He has told me he wants to get a house and everything place so that when I move there I won't have anything to worry about and everything will be ready for me. I hope to move there this summer, but I have 2 children, so it sort of makes things a little more complicated since he has yet to meet them. So, that may delay our plans a little bit. As for marriage, he has referred to me as his future wife to a few of his friends. I also do not plan on moving anywhere unless I am at least engaged. I need that sort of commitment to drop everything here and live with him. So, yes, the future is hopefully bright for us!

[Zephii]

I'm big on planning. If I don't have a realistic 5 year plan ahead of me, my brain fritz's out lol.
Obi wasn't so great with it. He could plan things I couldn't, like events or parties, but devising what country or when to have children was unthinkable for him for what seemed like ages. Every time the plan needed to change it was like pulling teeth! Originally, we didn't have a plan because we "knew" this wouldn't work and so were determined to just "be friends". Still wish I'd gotten my arse over to Canada earlier. But any way, early on it was me making a couple of feasible plans and asking him which he preferred.

The last time we made a plan though he said "I'm ready to plan" and I grabbed a note pad, and we wrote out our goals for the next five years or so. As we went we planned when I'm going to pop out our children, and he was very uncomfortable (he's so cute) and I was scared that when the time comes he wouldn't follow through. But now he's getting used to his impending loss of freedom, he talks about it casually, and the other night had a dream about being a dad which he remarked was pleasant.
The moral of this story is having a plan is good for people who are resistant to change. Gives them time to adjust.