Should I break up with him?
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| Tue, 09-20-2005 - 7:10pm |
I am having a difficult time deciding if I should stay with my
boyfriend. We've been together since the beginning of May, but in the
past two months, our differences have become more and more obvious to
me. Although I care about him deeply, I am not sure if I will be able to
look past how different we are, and if I see myself in a long term
relationship with him.
To begin with, our backgrounds are very different. I grew up in a small
town with a supportive, loving family and two wonderful sisters. My
parents worked hard to provide a safe home and good education for us.
When I introduced my boyfriend to my parents, they told me that he
seemed immature. My boyfriend's family moved from Canada when he was
very young, and his parents have been in and out of work ever since.
They have been in and out of poverty, and have not been able to find
long-term employment because they are "overqualified." When I first met
them over dinner in early August, they argued in front of me over family
matters.
I am 23, and currently work as a legal assistant in a corporate
environment. I am considering law school, and am studying to take the
LSAT in December. My boyfriend is 22, graduated from college, and is now
high school math teacher. While education is my mother's profession and
something that I consider to be very noble, it is strange to me that he
dropped out of electrical engineering because he thought it was "boring"
in order to become a teacher. He speaks often about how he is looking
forward to having the summers off, and how he pals around with his
students rather than demanding discipline and respect.
I consider myself to be an "old soul." Some people might call it boring
or maybe even prudish. I am quiet, interact better with adults rather
than younger people, and have interests in current events and bettering
myself. My boyfriend is rather immature, and insists on maintaining the
same group of friends that continue to support his immaturity. They all
dropped out of college, and spend all of their time outside of work
playing a video game on the internet together. In order to interact with
them more, my boyfriend has purchased this video game, and now wastes of
his time playing it, too. A lot of evenings, he is so distracted by it
that he delays completing his grading responsibilities for his classes
so that he can go out to eat with these guys to talk about the video
game, or play it alone in his room.
His friends are a close circle, and invite us out constantly to dinner
and to go to a bar to "hang out." None of them have girlfriends, so I go
and sit with a group of guys and listen to them talk about inside jokes
and strategies for the beloved video game for hours on end. When I tell
my boyfriend that I do not want to go, he is baffled, then suggests that
I learn more about the video game and topics they are discussing. My
boyfriend also has another group of friends that are trying to become
professional musicians. Since I originally started college to study
voice and ultimately finished in English, I can sympathize with their
love of music. However, I eventually lost my desire to sing for a career
because of being shy and for fear of security of a regular job. His
musician friends often have these weekend shows that are not well
attended. The music is strange, and the crowds are even stranger, and I
feel so out of place while he just blends in.
Ultimately, I believe that he refuses to make me a priority over these
things that he did as a 20 year old. Call me old fashioned, but as
people finish with school and head towards marriage, it is natural for
them to couple off and spend less time with their college "dude"
friends. My boyfriend insists that he must divide his time between us,
especially since I refuse to hang out with them most of the time,
because they are his friends. While I cannot expect him to completely
remove them from his life, I think about all the positive friends that
he could make among the faculty at the school where he teaches, and how
he is ignoring those possibilities.
Finally, as you might deduce from the above, we do not seem to have a
lot in common, especially since he had been playing this video game more
and more. It is all I can do to find a movie to talk with him about, and
that bothers me. I have always found conversation to be much more
fulfilling than the mere fact that I am holding hands with someone.
Maybe I have already made up my mind as to what the right thing is for
me to do and am just working up the inner strength actually go through
with breaking up. I am a very kind, passive person, and over the past
weeks, I have tried to break things off. Then suddenly we are both
crying and I realize that I do care about him and that he adores me. I
have never broken up with anyone before; I always let them break up with
me first. This guy says that I am the most amazing girl ever, and that
he would never break up with me unless I did something horrible, like
cheat on him. Since I am not the cheating type at all, this won't
happen. So I am stuck. He is a very kind, soft spoken guy with a big
heart. I am afraid of hurting him, of regretting the breakup and
realizing I made a mistake, etc.. I know that it will ultimately be my
decision, but I don't know where to go from here. Any advice you can
offer would be wonderful.

I would say you're right. You already know what you want to do and what you think is best for you, you're just struggling to find the courage to go through with it.
I remember very clearly feeling very similar to how you feel when I was thinking of breaking up with my high school sweetheart, who I was engaged to and had been with for about seven years. I felt like such a heel for making him cry. I cried too, not so much becasue of heartbreak but because I hated hurting him nad I was scared I might never find someone else who would love me.
But as hard as it was I knew I had to face my fear and ignore my guilt and do the right thing for me. And I knew ending it was the right thing. I just didn't have any respect for him (noticing a similarity?) and you can't make a marriage work without respect.
I know it's tough and I wont tell you that it'll be easy to end things. Hurting someone you truly care for never feels good and you will probbaly carry that guilt with you for a while, not that you should, but it can be tough to shake. And you will have doubts after you've ended things that you may not find love again, but you will and you have to just remind yourself of that when your confidence sags. As difficult as it is and as bad as you might feel for a while, that doesn't mean it isn't the right choice.
I know for a while I convinced myself to stay because of the guilt and fear. I told myself, "Well, if it wasn't meant to be then why do I feel so horrible about ending it." But the nagging feeling I should end it just wouldn't go away and wouldn't be denied. I had to come to terms with the fact that feeling guilty and scared about ending it were VERY different feelings then being broken up because I was losing him. I wasn't afraid of losing him. I was just afraid of being alone, afraid of being "the bad guy", afraid of losing my friends (because my friends were really our friends), and feeling really guilty about hurting someone who I really did love and care about very much, but didn't really want to spend my life with.
Like I said, it was hard and it was sad. Very possibly, it was one of the three hardest things I've ever done in my life. Unfortunately, doing the right thing is often hard and sometimes sad. Nobody every said that being a grown up and doing the right thing was fun. :)
The good news is I eventually found someone who was right for me and who I DO want to spend my life, in fact we're getting married in 11 days (not that I'm counting). It may take a while for you to find someone that you can love, trust, and RESPECT enough to want to spend your life with them, but you will. It just wont be this guy.