TL;dr – what is the advice on getting into a relationship before starting university?
18 F I’m starting university (1st year) in a couple months and I’m also talking to this boy 18 M and I can see it developing into a relationship, he isn’t going to university. We both met at our high school but I’m staying in the same city where we both grew up, went to school etc, my uni is here and I’ll be living here for my full course. I really like him but in recent years I was thinking about having a boyfriend etc and thinking that maybe I’ll meet someone special in uni and that I shouldn’t go into uni with a boyfriend?
Has anyone started uni in a relationship and have you found it held you back? Or was it the best thing ever? I feel like I need advice from people who have experienced this?
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24m Just graduated a few years ago. You can play it out and see. Idk how far you will be distance wise from one another but it’ll be very difficult either way. It’ll be a fun, exciting, challenging time for you. That’s why I didn’t wanna be in a relationship in college. Didn’t want anyone holding me back from experiences. You’ll want to drink and party and no want someone to worry about your intentions or safety while you’re doing those things.
But some couple do it. Although I assume it wasn’t easy. Just a thought
You don’t want to be in an LDR when you start school.
It’s likely to be extremely challenging because you’re going to be going out a lot and meeting a ton of new people, and that’s likely to trigger his insecurities, which will cause you to feel like you have to do a lot of managing of his emotions and maybe even start clipping your own wings.
e.g., all your new friends are going out but you’ll have to explain it if you join them, or you’re supposed to call him because you said you would and you want to be in the moment.
Very, very few pre-college relationships last very long for this reason.
BUT:
That’s no reason not to date this guy for a couple of months and enjoy each other’s company, if you can do that and then move on comfortably. Sometimes people seem to have it in their head that if a relationship isn’t going to last until one of you dies then it’s a bad idea, but relationships serve a lot of different purposes in our lives.
“I had this nice, healthy, fun little thing that lasted a little while and then ended cleanly” is actually a really powerful thing to have in your back pocket going forward. Knowing you can do that makes you far less likely to put up with all sorts of bullshit from future partners.
Met my girlfriend my junior year of high-school. In my senior year of college going to propose next fall. We tried a break in college and it was terrible. At least give it a fair shot.
I think it’s better to be single starting university. If you were already years deep into a relationship then sure ride it out and see how it goes, but I wouldn’t start something new a month or two before university.
One of the main reasons to be single is that being in a relationship will take up lots of time and attention and change the boundaries you have with potential new friends. It’s nice to be able to go with the flow with new friends (and potential romantic interests) at university instead of having to worry about a call you have scheduled with your bf, or whether he will be jealous about you going to hang out in a new friend’s dorm room or whatever. Having all the time and flexibility in the world is really great at university so that you can more easily connect with friends and build your social group.
Well, I think you have to understand that your life is still developing. You may have experiences in college that take you in a different direction from your partner. You may be interested in living in different places, or doing dramatically different kinds of work.
It isn’t impossible to have a long-distance relationship, but it will be difficult.
I knew someone in college who had a “boyfriend back home” but it was someone who managed the local Dairy Queen type of place. Her parents imagined them as getting married, but she had no interest in that, and didn’t want to move back to her small town after college, anyway.
So, make sure you don’t have someone trying to guilt you into going back home, or dropping out, or anything like that. You’d need a supportive partner who encourages you to follow your interests.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with it; I have a set of who friends got together when they were in high school, went to different colleges, and then went jobhunting and moved in together in a third city and seem to now be living very happily ever after.
But you ABSOLUTELY MUST keep all of the following in mind:
Your boyfriend doesn’t own you. If he gets weird about you going out with your friends because you theoretically might jump in bed with some stranger even though you have no, this is not any more okay from a LDR than a partner you see all the time, i.e., not at all.
If you do want to go out and sow wild oats and so on, which is fine and a normal thing to want to do as a young adult, break up with him/don’t date him in the first place.
Under absolutely no circumstances, ever, EVER quit college or give up on a good internship or job/grad school offer or anything of the sort just because your boyfriend lives somewhere else. Once you’ve been in a happy committed relationship a long time it can be reasonable to e.g. take your second choice to support your partner’s first choice on career opportunities if theirs is higher paying/less replaceable, but even then you’ve got to be careful about that.