My Australian is Making me Claustrophobic

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Hi all. Long time lurker, first time poster. This seems like a good a crowd as any to weigh in with some relationship advice, so let’s dive right in!

I am a 21-year old girl dating a 24-year old Australian. I met him when he was on exchange in the US, then I went to Australia for a semester, then he came back to the states to do a master’s degree while I finish my undergraduate. My life is basically a romantic comedy. We’ve been together 3 years. We’re both going to graduate next May, and the plan is to move to Australia together. I love Australia, think it would be a great adventure, and think I will be able to get in to grad school there or find a job for a few years. I really want to go to medical school, but it’s too expensive to do that in Aus without residency status, which would take a few years to get.

This guy is great. He’s kind, sweet, loving, giving, generous, and the sex is pretty good. Anyway, I think this guy will make a great husband and father - one day. Here’s the problem… I’m kind of freaking out at the idea of spending eternity together. We’ve lived together for the last 2 years and I already feel like I’ve missed some of the college experience due to that, but I have gotten a lot of wonderful things from it too. But lately when he gets all handsy and tries to kiss me, it just annoys me and I want space.

My uncle and aunt died suddenly this summer, and my sister has cervical cancer that has metastasized into her brain. There’s not really any coming back from that, and the last year has been a painful exercise in watching her die. All through this, my Aussie has been wonderful, supportive, loving, and just great. We don’t ever really have stimulating conversations any more (think a 10 hour roadtrip in relative silence… I don’t know if he even has opinions), though. He doesn’t read any books and it kind of bothers me. I ran in to my ex boyfriend on campus a few weeks ago and have been wondering intensely about the road not taken since then.

I don’t know if these doubts and questions will go away, ever, and I don’t want to end up married with a big question mark in my head. But maybe these doubts are normal? I don’t want to break up with such an amazing person only to discover that I’m always going to have doubts. Or, worse, break up to discover that there isn’t anybody I’m compatible with around when I do want to settle down. What if this is the best there is? Why am I being such an asshole here? I just wish there was a way to put him on hold for 5 years while I go have my youth. I wish we would have met when I was 27.

Part of me just wants to have my own space, go live with my girlfriends, and travel when I graduate before I try to get in to med school. If we do break up, how can I do it in the least assholish way possible? I know he wants to marry me, but maybe some time apart would be good? Oh, I forgot to add we share a car, a bed, and a lease, so breaking up now (a quarter of the way into the academic semester) is going to be tough.

I think we agreed today to take some time apart, but just physically, not from the relationship. I’m going to stay with some friends for a few nights and try to get some perspective. I am really an asshole. :frowning:

2

Ugh. Don’t get married. Don’t you dare have kids. I see nothing wrong with moving to Australia, even with him, if you really think you can get into grad school…the world is much more global now and it might be a wonderful opportunity for you. But why on earth are you thinking about getting married at 21 if you are not totally sure? What is the rush?!

I can’t scream it enough. You’re twenty-one. There are other guys!!!

3

I’m not even considering getting married now, or having kids. Maybe I miscommunicated that. I can just see that it is heading that direction and is sort of an eventuality. We already live more or less like married folk, sharing an apartment, a joint checking account, etc. It’s kind of freaking me out, even though he is a wonderful person. I guess my main question is, is it normal to have these doubts or am I missing some big amazing thing not being single? I have been in a relationship pretty much constantly since I was 15, and I feel like I’m missing being myself.

I actually already got into a graduate neuroscience program in Sydney that pays a relatively OK wage. I would start next July. The problem is, my Australian has to do his PhD in Melbourne. Hence it’s kind of back to the drawing board. But I think I probably could get in to a similar program in Melbourne if I decide to go that route.

4

I strongly suspected this was the case when I read your OP. It’s pretty common for relationships to end for precisely this reason.

You’re at a stage in life where *who you really are *shifts, moving from who you were as a juvenile to who you’ll become as a mature adult. In addition … he’s at the same stage, I’d wager. It’s common for people to drift apart as that changing-of-self happens, so stop beating yourself up and calling yourself an asshole, 'kay?

You might as well not break up right when it would be the most difficult, but … there’s *never *a convenient time to break up, so don’t think you can just wait until there is, because there won’t be.

5

Honestly I’d be pissed if I found out my girlfriend was trying to get advice for our relationship on a message board from complete strangers when she could talk to me. Tell him what you just told us. It sounds like moving to Austrailia might inhibit you from doing what you want to do, though, which isnt cool.

6

This is a big red flag - I had exactly the same response to my ex, over the year before we broke up.

You’re already planning your exit strategy. I think you probably need to admit to yourself that your decision is actually made already, and now you need a plan to get you out, while doing minimal financial and emotional damage to both of you. This probably won’t happen - you sound pretty financially intertwined, which means this could as well be a divorce in terms of separation and setting yourself back up again. Can you afford to life by yourself/with friends? And it sounds like the two of you had very long term plans, and you uprooting these will be incredibly painful for him - being honest about it is probably the only way in the long term to get out gracefully.

7

It’s over. Excuse the bluntness, but physical revulsion (maybe too strong a word) is a huge sign.

8

Shooting from the hip here, but it almost sounds to me like you have a really good friend who is no longer really a boyfriend. You keep describing him as a “really amazing guy” but then go on to describe several things that drive you bonkers as well as being physically revulsed by him (can you use the word that way?). Anyway, I see several red flags in this relationship and I think you need to sit down and have a long chat with your Aussie.

9

C’mon down under and if you dump him there are a million more aussie blokes out there!

Look space is important but I think that you may be feeling rushed into this and maybe just maybe it is not what you want? But don’t die wondering!

10

erinzest, I’m also 21. Just recently broke up with my boyfriend of 3 1/2 years. A lot about your situation sounds familiar. The idea that you could very easily keep on going as you are, perhaps marry and kids someday, a feeling of missing out on single life… now, even the fact that he irritates you when he tries to be grabby and kissy. Yet, my boyfriend was (is) an awesome guy too. We had a good relationship, even though towards the end he started to feel more like a close friend than a romantic partner.

I don’t regret breaking up with him at all. I’m going overseas to do a semester uni exchange and travel next year, which was part of the catalyst me wanting to change things. At the moment I’m just enjoying the freedom of being single and knowing that nothing ‘serious’ can or will happen, with anyone, in the time before I leave the country. After being a part of a couple for over 3 years, it’s a nice feeling.

I obviously can’t say how I’ll feel in the future. I do worry that a time will come when I’ll regret losing such an awesome guy. I figure, though, that if we do end up together, I want it to be something that I actively chose, rather than something that I drifted into.

Probably not that helpful, but I just want to say that I totally get where you’re coming from. In your situation I chose to break up, and right now I’m very happy and at peace with that.

Good luck with whatever you decide :slight_smile:

11

This. My guess is that if you talk this out with your guy you’ll be able to walk away with a great friend you can visit in Australia, which frankly is worth fighting for.

Moving to the other side of the globe for someone you’re not even thinking about marrying right now seems like a big mistake. Now, moving to Oz because it’s freaking awesome and you’re addicted to Violette Crumbles, that’s a legitimate reason. But it really seems like you two have lost your “spark,” and are just coasting along on the inertia of the relationship (you’re “headed in that direction,” can see marriage as “sort of an eventuality?”). Although right now it’s easier to stay together than to get a new apartment, separate your finances, etc. as time goes by things are likely to get worse rather than better. In my experience, relationships like these tend to slowly fizzle, deteriorate, drag on and fester until some watershed moment that forces the two parties to confront the fact that maybe it’s over. A moment such as “I’m moving to the other side of the planet, is this serious enough that you’ll follow, or should we break up?”

12

There’s your solution–go to Australia, but live in different cities. This gives you plenty of space and you’ll have to make the effort to see each other, and sometimes absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder. You might gain some perspective from being the one who’s out of her comfort zone, reliant on the only person you know in the country. Maybe you’ll find out that what you interpret as his diffidence and lack of opinions might have its roots in him being in a strange culture. You go be the oddball, see how that changes your dynamic. And if you still end up breaking up, fine. You’ll have one hell of an experience that you’d be kicking yourself for missing if you pass on it because of a failed relationship.

13

I have friends who married the guy they’d been dating since they were 13, 14, 15. I also have others, many more, who broke up with that guy. I know one couple who broke up when they were at the verge of moving in together, met again a few years later and ended up getting married.
Two of the friends who ended up getting married started a new custom in our home town: the summer we were 16, they’d been dating for a year and a half. All throughout the summer (a time spent going from a town’s fiestas to the next as much as possible, meeting new people, dancing, making out and generally having great fun) some busybody went to the guy in a flap “oh my, we saw your girl with another guy!” “My girl? Who is that?” “Why, Ana! Who would it be, you dolt?” “Oh, Ana. We broke up, you see, she isn’t my girl.” She’d get the same stuff. The busybodies were completely stumped. September came, and one day they happened to be in the same bar, and they were standing at the bar together, each with a drink, and they looked at each other, and he said “I was wondering… they’re showing [whatever] in the movies this weekend.” “Oh, that’s nice, I haven’t seen it.” “:D” “snuggle:D” and became an official item again. As he once put it, “I like knowing that she’s with me because she wants me, because of the options she’s seen I am the one she likes best - not because she never had another choice.”
The point of pre-marital relationships is that they’re… a trial kind of thing. If it’s not working, it’s not; you recognize that and move on. Sounds to me like it’s not working for you, right now. You’ve already talking a temporary separation, now you need to decide whether it becomes permanent, and you know what? It’s for the best. Much, much wiser to either break up now (before papers and children) than after, or to go on knowing that this really is the man you like best.

14

I’m going to buck the trend here so far and say yes, doubts are normal.

Very few people find their perfect match, for most of us it’s a case of ‘does this person tick enough of my boxes for me to be willing to commit to him/her?’. That’s not to say that you should definitely spend the rest of your life with this guy, only you can be the judge of that. But wondering about whether you’ve made the right choice or not is normal and common.

How much of this is him, and how much of it is you? It’s easy to fall into bad patterns of behaviour, and to blame the other person without taking a look at how you yourself are behaving. Relationships change over time and it takes constant work from both parties to make sure that you’re both getting what you want out of the relationship.

15

Stop beating yourself up. You’re 21 - you’re in the prime of your life - when all things are possible, and I don’t remotely blame you for wanting the freedom to explore. I can tell you one thing for nothing - stay with this guy and you will always feel like this, wondering what you’ve missed out on, who else you might have met, which means you’ll end up splitting up in ten years time when you’ve got 2 kids and a mortgage to untangle.

The very LAST thing you should be worrying about is whether you’ll ever meet someone else. Believe me, there really are plenty of fish in the sea, our grandmothers were right. There’s no way you’re about to consign yourself to spinsterhood.

I promise you this: once you have made the decision and actually broken up with this guy, you won’t have any long-term regrets. You may feel momentarily guilty, but beyond that, you will simply feel free and will hardly give him a backward glance. So don’t fret on that score.

The least asshole-ish way is to be honest. Tell him what you’ve told us (minus the physical revulsion part;)) Tell him that you’re young and want the freedom to explore your life. That you’re sorry and think he’s fantastic, but you’re just not sure he’s the one for you, and you’re too young to make that call anyway.

A car, a bed and a lease are minor inconveniences. Don’t let them dictate the course of your life.

16

This is awesome advice.

17

I met my first husband when I was 18 and just starting college. We married shortly before my 21st birthday.

Many, many wiser friends told me I was too young and that I should wait. I have always regretted that I was so tied down during what should have been the best years of my young adulthood. Had first child at 24, second child at 26. Never pursued a career.

I had doubts from the beginning. I should have listened to those doubts. We divorced eventually.

He was and is a very good person. Kind, supportive, all the things that you describe in your boyfriend. I just wasn’t ready. I thought I was but I wasn’t.

Be honest with him but follow your instincts.

18

Good advice here, and I just wanted to say lots of luck. Also, when I was your age, I made a pretty serious mistake. It was not the end of the world, and I recovered - you have lots of time to recover from potential mistakes. :slight_smile:

19

I just want to endorse this post. I was in your exact same position at 21 (barring the Australian adventure) - I was living with a lovely man who I had met at 19. If I have any regrets in life it’s that I didn’t have the strength of character to recognise my doubts and leave him. I ended up doing it 8 years later, by which time I had a mortgage and a marriage to untangle. I can never get back the freedom I could have enjoyed when at college.

20

I got married at 22, and have never regretted it for a second. Best idea I ever had. I did not feel the way you are describing. Sounds to me like you want out. Don’t drag it out too long.