with him four years - now having feelings for someone else ....

[wendybird]

i am 19 years old and my boyfriend is 21. we have been together for four years now. my boyfriend has always (even when he was just 17) taken care of me. i went through alot of things shortly after we got together... and he was my comfort, and he always made sure i was taken care of. we have lived together for about 3 years now. you can say that we have the perfect relationship, we have never really fought before (honestly) we just work together, ya know ? anyway, in the last couple of months i have been thinking alot about the future. we have always said we were going to get married one day. still, i started to get a little worried. my boyfriend and i have been with eachother, and only eachother. the only other relationship i have had besides him was 2 weeks long (remember i was 15 when we got together), so he is the only real love i have ever known. these things started to worry me as i started thinking about the future... i mean you hear all the time about people who get together young and the fact that they have never expierenced anything outside of eachother usually becomes a problem later. i tried talking to him about this, but he keeps telling me not to worry... he loves me and only me and he cant imagine ever being with anyone besides me. im sure most of you know what im talking about. i on the other hand... do wonder. i sometimes wonder what it would be like to be with someone else... and i have a crush. i have never had this problem before the entire time we have been together... but there it is. the butterflies and all. i thought it would just go away but it didnt... my boyfriend and i have always been honest to eachother, and i have been a wreck about it for weeks... so i felt like i needed to tell him about this. he was upset of course... but i assured him i never cheated on him, or anything at all related to cheating. this was just something that showed up that i couldnt help. after talking... he made it apparent that he didnt want to break up. but now i feel like this just isnt fair to him. i mean is it fair to be with someone when you have feelings for someone else ?? i still love him, and care about him very much... im just so confused and scared. ontop of it, if we did break up i dont know what i would do financially. he makes well more than i do and it would be rather difficult for me to afford an apartment on my own... but that really isnt a good reason to stay with him is it ?

[emma34]

Your right, that's not a real good reason to stay...those kinds of things are arrangable. Ya know, there are couples out there who got together in highschool and stuck it out to the end, but for me personally, I was never a fan of that idea. I had the same situation (longterm HS bf) but I broke it off after grad. If your experiencing these nagging feelings now, theres a good chance they will not go away, sorry to say. But @ the same time, hooking up with someone else right away seems risky...but who knows. I think it would be fair to you, and him (in the end) to take a break from your relationship. Assure him that this is what u need and there is nothing he can do to change that, and if he accepts you as a person, he will be able to accept your needs - to experiences relationships beyond HIM. Maybe in a few years or whatever you guys could get back together?? But in the meantime pining would not help. Ya, so basically, I have a sense you've been fighting this gut feeling for awhile, but its time to act and think clearly. Is this really what u want??? Only you can decide.

[friscodj]

wendybird-

 

I would take a look again at what you wrote about your relationship with your b/f. It sounds pretty darn good to me, and is probably envied by many members of this forum. It sounds like you've got it good with your b/f.

 

As far as having "crushes" on other people. Do you think married people don't have crushes on other people? They do, I know and have known many married couples and it happens. The key is what you do with it. I personally believe there is a downward trend in emotional discipline in this day and age, the words "loyalty" and "dedication" have lost a lot of meaning, and there is a proliferation in the mentality of going after what feels better at the time, something that might be better than what you have because it feels so good, chasing the butterflies if you will.

 

That's my opinion on the subject. My advice to you is to really think about what you have and what it would be like if you lost it all because of something you did. Now I understand you're young and want to see and explore new things, and that's normal and healthy and should be considered by the two of you together, but I'm just urging you to take a step back and look at what you have right now before risking to lose it.

[annie24]

While Friscodj has a good point, many married people have harmless crushes, I think your situation is a bit different. This is the only man you've essentially dated. You haven't dated other men at all and you're wondering what else is out there. I had a roommate in the same situation as you. She was envious of my thousand failed relationships. She was with her boyfriend (who was perfect to her) for years, since high school. But, she was always wondering what else was out there.

 

I don't know what to tell you. This is a tough situation. I'll tell you that true love is VERY VERY difficult to come by. It doesn't happen every day. And I'm 90% certain that if you broke up with your guy, the next guy you date won't treat you as well as this guy does...

 

I would do some hard thinking. Are you willing to lose this guy to explore the unknown? Or do you want to experience other men and relationships?

[friscodj]

While Friscodj has a good point, many married people have harmless crushes, I think your situation is a bit different.

 

I agree. My point was to illustrate by a more serious example that just because you have a crush on someone else who isn't your partner, it doesn't mean your partner or the relationship you are in is not working and you should look elsewhere...

 

Again, I urge you to examine the situation, yourself, talk about it, and decide for your own. But from my perspective, it sounds like you've got a good thing going right now with your current guy...

[Fivek]

I was in the same place your boyfriend was. I was the long term HS boyfriend who was dumped for "the unknown." If you were to have posted this topic months and months ago, I would have been in a very different position from what I"m about to say:

 

This is probably the best thing that will ever happen to him.

 

Now why do I say that? Because the transformation I have gone through, through the pain of rejection and lonliness, has really allowed me to grow, develop, and mature into someone I am proud to be. Let him come to his own decisions through his own thought processes.

 

Now because of that, you shouldn't consider him when you make your decision. Don't allow pity to be your binding force between you and him. That makes for a doomed relationship.

 

Now in terms of you, I think you should go for it, because I do agree with annie24 when she says "you will always wonder." Perhaps this is best path for you, regardless of what you learn in the future.