I'm strongly considering ending a four-year relationship, but need more assurance that walking away from this is the right decision. This is a long rant, but I really need help here.
In these past four years, we’ve survived more than most – in the first half of our relationship I chose to move 500 miles away and soon after that he was deployed to Iraq for nine months. He proposed shortly after he came home, we moved in together and planned our wedding over the next year. Then, seven weeks before our wedding, he called it off. His way of ending it was wildly immature – I never thought he could treat me with so much disrespect. He was mean and hurtful and did everything he could to push me out of his life. I was blindsided and devastated.
Within a few weeks, he was begging to be back together, saying he made a huge mistake. We had several heated discussions and, because I still had hope for our relationship, eventually we decided to go to couples counseling. I began to understand the reasons why he was scared of marriage and I agreed to let him back in my life. We slowly started to spend more time together and get back to that beginning dating stage again. We were enjoying each other’s company and all was well. But, recently we’ve started to fight a lot and there are several things that are preventing me from being fully confident and happy in this relationship:
1. For one, my family (and some of my friends) refuse to accept our relationship. I’m beginning to think that if we stay together, he will never be able to attend family functions and I’m afraid the relationships I have with my family and some of my friends will suffer. This is hard for me to stomach, because I value my friends and family so much.
On the flip side, I think my family is being a bit unfair because, if I’m trying to find happiness, shouldn’t they support my efforts to do that no matter what? This has caused a lot of fights between my family and me, and me and my partner. My partner resents my family for not accepting/approving of him, but he also made no efforts to apologize to them after he broke off the wedding; in fact, he hasn’t spoken to any of them since. As a result, my family sees him as immature and completely wrong for me; they see my decision to stay with him as a huge mistake.
I don’t know if I can go through life with someone who will never connect well with my family. He also recently told me he doesn’t like a lot of my friends, and, really, I don’t typically enjoy hanging out with his friends either. Can you really make it work when the only person you have in common is each other?
2. Since our break up, I’ve moved closer to my work, which puts us about an hour away from each other. He now has plans to re-enlist in the military, and I have plans to go back to school. This means we will at least be in separate cities for the next 3.5 – 4 years. In that time, I’m afraid we will be living completely separate lives (it already feels like we are) and will grow further apart. I also feel like I will have to be the one to compromise my career if we are ever going to be in the same place. His military career is not flexible as far as location, so it would be me making changes in my life and career in order for us to be together.
I’m 28 years old, which I know isn’t old, but I don’t know if I want to wait 4 years to start establishing a life and a family with someone. It seems like an awful long time to wait for the things I want in life. Plus, I’m not even sure where he will be stationed by the time I’m done with school – what if it’s somewhere I don’t want to go? The unknown makes it harder for me to picture a successful future with him.
3. I know a wedding shouldn’t be the most important thing, but I’d like to be excited about my wedding. And, since I already planned and cancelled one with him, I get sad thinking that I’ll never be able to be happy and excited about our wedding if we stay together. Instead, I feel like it will create anxiety and sadness – plus, I’m not even sure my family would show up at this point. And, I know I will always have that thought in the back of my mind, “will he call it off again?”
OK, so all of this sounds pretty negative and I’m sure if anyone is reading this you’re thinking I should end it right away. The reason I haven’t yet is because I do still love him very much. When we spend time together, I feel I can totally be myself and not worry about all the stressful things going on in my life. He knows nearly everything about me and accepts me, faults and all. He also says he has full confidence in our relationship and is willing to work on things until I’m fully committed.
If all these feelings I’m having would go away, I think we could have a successful life together. But, I’m not sure these feelings will ever go away and if I can ever be fully confident in our relationship. So, is it better to wait it out and see? Or, is it better to say goodbye and start anew? I know each relationship has its own set of issues, so I’m not sure if I’ll run into this magnitude of issues in another relationship, or if these are serious, irreparable issues that will ultimately keep me unhappy.
I’m left wondering if this is as good as it gets, or if I’m wasting my time and effort. Help, please!
