I [20M] have been in a relationship with my girlfriend [20F] for 2 years now. Everything seems to be going well. We love each other very much, we go on plenty of dates, our sex is good, but yet I feel like something is missing.
Let’s start with the good stuff: this girl on paper, is the girl of my dreams. She’s good looking, she’s extremely intelligent, she’s ambitious, funny, she takes brilliant care of me, we can truly talk about anything, and we love each other to death.
One reason our relationship feels off to me, for which I don’t know if it’s a valid reason or not, is that I’m not sure I even want to be such a committed relationship at this age. Every time I go out with friends, I feel sort of restricted. Especially since last year, girls have been coming up to me on a regular just trying to have a chat. I never do anything obviously, but the urge to do something never goes away. At first I thought I was just thinking with my dick too much and it was better to just control my urges, but now I start to slowly realize that I might just actually prefer to have my fun at this age over being in a committed relationship and having all of the restrictions that come with it.
On the other hand: what if I break up with her, and then come to find out I actually much prefer to be in a serious relationship. A “The grass is always greener on the other side” situation. I’m really not sure if I should risk losing “potentially” the girl of my dreams, just because I feel like I wanna have my fun while I’m still young.
A second reason is that I do think our relationship has changed over the years. She seems to have gotten a lot more clingy and jealous, and she requires much more emotional attention then she did 2 years ago. This has only been a pattern for the past 1,5 months and I don’t exactly know the reason. She might have gotten too attached, or dependent on me. Maybe she’s just going through a little bit of a rough time right now in school or in some other area of her personal life.
Anyways, it has resulted in multiple pointless fights in which she completely overreacts (she also admitted that), mostly because she expects me to do things for her in our relationship that I don’t think are completely reasonable. It seems like everything I do is wrong and she for some reason feels like I’m not loving her the way I used to.
Maybe this is just a phase and we’ll get out of this situation soon, but maybe we are truly working towards the end of our relationship. Is this reason enough to break up with a girl I truly still love and cherish every time I see her?
P.S. obviously there’s more information, so if you have any questions feel free to ask
Comments
It sounds like you’re at a crossroads. Have you tried talking to your girlfriend about feeling restricted and her increased clinginess? Maybe open communication could help before making a big decision.
If you’re already mourning the freedom you don’t have, you’re halfway out the door. Don’t waste her time or yours trying to force forever when your gut’s asking for a detour.
I’m gonna take a guess here and say your girlfriend’s behavior probably has something to do with the way you’re feeling. In my experience, people tend to massively underestimate just how much their internal struggles are presenting externally. It’s more than likely she’s picked up on the fact that you’re feeling like the relationship is “off” and is either subconsciously or knowingly acting to try to prevent you leaving her or cheating on her. I could extrapolate more if I knew what exactly the “pointless fights” and “overreactions” and “things [you] don’t think are completely reasonable” are.
This is a hard situation, because you really haven’t gotten to experience any of your life as an adult yet out of a relationship, and neither I nor anyone on reddit can tell you whether you will or wont regret not having a fun slutty early 20’s phase later in life, I can only tell you the possibility is extremely real and tell you that you truly are not missing as much as you think you are. Often people in that phase are unfulfilled and unhappy because people are fickle and flaky and basing all your interpersonal relationships on “having fun,” especially sexually, does not tend to make for earnest friendships that leave you feeling fulfilled and heard and loved.
My personal opinion is that people put a lot of weight on sex and partying and romantic/sexual variety that simply doesn’t matter. I also think lots of people in this “having fun” phase tend to be shitty and don’t see the people they’re fooling around with as people and it leads to a lot of regret and harm that I think is best to just bypass entirely whenever possible. I’ve never heard a story from someone in that phase that didn’t sound completely hellish to me.
In the end, it really genuinely is up to you, my guy. What do you value most? Which future do you see being more realistic and enjoyable? Do you have a plan for when your early 20’s fun phase ends? Are you fully prepared to lose this girl entirely? Lots of questions you have to ask yourself and sit with and really come to terms with the answers of.