[Relationship advice] Am I wasting my time?

Lady_E

Frankly, having read your posts I think you need to move on. Eight years is a heck of a long time to have invested in your future without as far as I can see any investment coming from him . As far as I can see thi8ngs change because he wants them to , not because you have jointly decided that it would be good for the two of you . Set him free , if it was meant to be , he will come back

davieb71

Dear Athina, after reading your post i wish to put my side across as a man, don't hold it against me.
It seems that your BF going to work in the same place as you should show that he does love you, to give you timescale of marriage, to say that he would want you with him should he go abroad should allow you to understand that his love is real. Moving in together is a major decision and i agree in part with yourself and your BF especially if it meant working and living together.
Your friends may have settled down although do they have children?
All in all, i believe that the questions you may ask your BF should include:
Why do you want the MBA? When you get it and have a well paid job where do we go from there? If you go to Paris to do your MBA it would be better for both of us, will you go there?
Both of you need to understand what eachother want and i beleive that your BF is doing the MBA for both of your futures and so that you can settle down, have a home and family without the financial restraints placed upon you.
Although we can all give an opinion, your heart and mind will allow you to be honest with yourself. Ask your BF the questions and look into his eyes and heart, if you don't you may make a wrong decision.
I pray that thing's work out for you and your BF.

Yours
David

homersimpson_3

Oh I am so lost at what to do!

stick with him

[/QUOTE]]I have no doubt that he will get accepted into a good MBA school but my main problem is where and will it last [/QUOTE]

haven't this been discussed- if not why not? relationship lasted for 8 years and when he's been working abroad for 3 years, why shouldn't it last now? don't you trust him? if not what's the point in getting married and starting a family?

[QUOTE} I see all my friends around me settling down, getting married and talk about starting families and that is part of the reason why I am getting a bit depressed why doesn't my boyfriend want the same[/QUOTE]

you should get married and start a family because you love each other not because you want to follow your friends. your bf says he wants all this but not yet- don't understand??

So far he has given into my demands of leaving his job, taking a huge pay cut to work in the same town as me. I feel very guilty that I am pressuring him but I am so aware that my clock is ticking. He tells me that he will be ready for marriage either after his MBA (so late 2008) or if his grades are not good enough for an MBA then late next year (2007)

he must love you- he's sacrificed alot for you.

I feel very guilty that I am pressuring him but I am so aware that my clock is ticking

you're only 28- the worst scenario is you'll try for a family at 31 - not the end of the world. - is the average age 32? most, though not all women, are leaving it even later and having children in their 40's. so what? provided the child is loved and cared for and it's needs are met, it doesn't matter. set a date for the wedding now (based on 2 years and adjust it if you need 3 years). if you were in late 30's/40's it would a different matter!.

at the end of the day it's all comes down to trust- if you can't trust he to keep his promises/return to you what's the point in being together!

Jet

Personally I see nothing wrong in his decisions and his reasons behind them. But I also see nothing wrong in you wanting the life you want either.

I think you both want different things and you are both making compromises you're not happy with, which will ultimately end up in each resenting the other.

A truly equal relationship should mean that you both have roughly the same goals and ambitions as a couple. It doesn't mean that either of you are "right" or "wrong". Just that you are different.

Ultimately if one of you has to sacrifice your own needs to satisfy the others needs, then the relationship will end anyway.

black-saturn

I cant give you any advice other than to tell you about a situation I was once in. I went out with a guy for almost 4 years who still lived with his parents. I moved out of mine at 17 so it was already ringing alarm bells. After a year of going out with him I started to hint that I would like him to move out a come and live with me. He used to come up with silly excuses like "I dont know if your the right one for me but I do love you" and "Ill miss the dog" !!!!! I felt like I was the one keeping the realtionship afloat all the while as I had to arrange everything we did and keep reminding him about stuff all the time. It felt as though if I didnt keep reminding him he would forget and go off and do something else without a thought to me.

His parents were always doing me down to him for being a single parent and always comparing how much money they had in comparison to me.

Sometimes I would go weeks without seeing him or hearing from him because he was going out with his mates that night and didnt want to upset them or I couldnt go round his because his parents didnt want my children in the house. I just felt like I didnt matter to him and everyone else came first over me.

In the end it just got worse and worse. I knew he was never going to commit to me even though he said he would eventually. It got to the point he didnt want to see me at all unless it was convenient for him, as long as I didnt clash with any other plans he had (which wasnt very often).

In the end I decided to end it as I looked back to 4 years previous and I was still in the position I was then but with my self esteem in tatters, my confidence rock bottom and feeling really depressed all the while. I was standing in the school playground one morning and I overheard some mums talking about me and they were saying "that woman there always looks like she's about to burst out crying and like shes got the weight of the world on her shoulders all the time" and I realised I was and that really wasnt the way I wanted to live my life and no one had the right to make me feel that way. You only get one life and I didnt want to spend mine depressed all the time. Once I asked him what were his ambitions in life and he came out with a whole list of things he would like to do and not one of them included me. When I ended it he didnt even bat an eyelid and just said something like "Oh well we all move on I suppose". He didnt even get upset so it just made me realise I had been wasting almost 4 years waiting for someone who really wasnt that bothered about me.

I think you need to find out now what your goals are, what you want from life and what your limitations are (how long are you prepared to wait?). If they dont add up with his you should think about ending it. If he won't commit he won't commit and thats that. Sorry.

mrcow

TBH if I were him, I'd have kicked you into touch years ago.


You've made him take a job that he hates and are constantly nagging and pressurising him to give into your own amibitions of settling down, something that he just isn't ready for yet. And now, you want to put the buffers on his ambitions of further education.

If you loved him, then you'd let him fufill his own dreams and wouldn't be so selfish. Biological clock pah! it takes two to make a baby, and they both have to want it equally.

Maybe you need to look for someone who has more of a similar mindset to yourself.

athina_2

Hold on there mrcow. I didn't make him take a job which he hated. In fact the job he applied for was doing exactly the same work that he previously did. It just happened to turn sour when he joined & the manager left & another engineer left (it went from a team of three to just my boyfriend) & wasn't replaced due to headcount freezes so my boyfriend had to take on a lot more work than should be expected.

homersimpson: what you wrote is what I want to think but am not sure as I just feel that the timescales are too long. How long is reasonable to wait? Is it to do with age or waiting time?

I don't mind waiting until I am 30 to settle down, get married and have a family but the one thing I am afraid of is if something happens eg he goes to the US for 2 years for an MBA then my patience will have worn too thin and I personally do not want to do the long distance relationship ever again as it caused too much stress last time.

fiobee

athina wrote:

I am 28 years old and have been with my boyfriend on/off for 8 years now... So all is fine until he gets a new job which requires a lot of travel in the far east. For the next two years he was working there and I saw him once every 3 months for 2 weekends... 3 years after him travelling whilst being my boyfriend my nagging finally gets him to apply for a job at the company where I work, where he got offered and accepted... He wants to start studying to do an MBA full time which will mean him leaving & possibly going abroad next year for 1-2 years. We still don't live together as he is thinking of leaving already as he hates the job... He has told me many times that I am the one and he does want to get married and have a family with me but I feel it is taking too long for things to happen... Am I wasting my time here or am I being impatient?

To sum up from an outsider's point of view: the relationship has been on/off for 8 years, for a significant period of time you were apart and you don't even live together. In eight years, he hasn't of his own volition wanted to live near you or with you - and either he hasn't asked or you haven't wanted to move to be with him. I'm so sorry but I think you have wasted your time and it's definitely time to move on.

black-saturn

I'm not knocking you or anything but it does also sound like your making excuses for him all the time like your scared to let go. Thats understandable.

ms_london

fiobee wrote:

To sum up from an outsider's point of view: the relationship has been on/off for 8 years, for a significant period of time you were apart and you don't even live together. In eight years, he hasn't of his own volition wanted to live near you or with you - and either he hasn't asked or you haven't wanted to move to be with him. I'm so sorry but I think you have wasted your time and it's definitely time to move on.

I have to agree 100% with you Fiobee - I could imagine that it's a scary thought ending the relationship after 8 years, but do you really want to be in the same position another 8 years down the line where he still hasnt comitted to you but you have waited for him while he has pursued his dreams/goals. You shouldnt have to wait. If he does want to go abroad and do his MBA, let him do it as a single person - then if you havent met someone else by the time he gets back, perhaps you could see if you still have something special? I think you can do a lot better though!! xx