[JJMilton]

Hi guys,
Me and my girlfriend are both 18 and we’ve been going out for about 18 months now. Over this time I’ve come to really love her and she means the world to me. However we were both each others first ‘proper’ relationships (and sexual); and while a part of me wants to be with this girl for the rest of my life, another part is telling me I’m only 18 and I don’t want to be in that kind of relationship yet! I love her so much in the way I would love a life-partner; but the problem is that I don’t want a life-partner right now! This has been made so much worse by having just started university, where I’ve made lots of new female friends, and I feel like I’m missing out on ‘having fun’, and enjoying being a young, single guy. I’m not saying I just want to go sleeping around, but I think it’s important to have fun and experiment when your young before you ‘settle down’ so you know what you really want later in life – but I’ve never had that experience! I know it must sound really selfish, and that there are tonnes of single people that would love to be in a healthy, loving relationship like I am, but no matter how much I care for my girlfriend, I just can’t shake off this feeling of missing out. I do have feelings for other girls I know, but I would never actually do anything to cheat on my girlfriend! It breaks my heart to think of her being in a relationship or doing anything like that with anyone else, and I know how much it would hurt her to see me with someone else! I know it’s selfish, and could never really happen – but in an ideal world I guess I’d like us to have a break in our relationship to allow me tor me to have my fun and sort what I really want, and if that’s her to have her back, with her having remained faithful to me! Like I said – completely selfish and unrealistic – but it’s how I feel :S These feelings have only been growing over the last few months, I just wish I knew if I would ever get over them, or, if our relationship does last for years to come, whether they would constantly be there and I’d always regret not having done what was right for me. However the longer I leave it, the harder a break up would be for the both of us, and I feel that if I am going to break up with her, I should do it sooner rather than later. Has anyone else had a similar problem? If so how did you deal with it? Any suggestions, because I’m starting to feel really bad about this situation, not just for me, but for her as I don’t feel I can commit to our relationship 100%.

Thanks in advance.

(Also please don’t respond with comments such as, “If you really loved her you wouldn’t feel that way,” or, “you’d know what to do,” because I don’t think love is really that simple – maybe for a few lucky people, but not everyone!)

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Your feelings are very normal. And this is a normal situation — in fact I get a lot of questions from readers your age, in exactly your situation, asking me the same thing. Rather than place moral judgment on your feelings, the best thing you can do is address the problem at hand.

You’re starting college and you’re surrounded by single people your own age in a large group and for the next four years this is going to be the only time in your life when you’ll be in this situation. It’s smart to want to live life to the fullest – and for you, specifically, this means experimenting and sampling life, including dating.

The problem is that you can’t have everything and you love your girlfriend enough to not cheat on her, but instead to be honest enough to consider breaking up with her because you can’t be true to yourself and to her at the same time. If you do break up with her, you’ll get a chance to play the field and date other women, but you will run the risk that she’ll do the same and may move on with someone else. That’s the price you pay, but the cost for not taking this opportunity is greater than that price, in my humble opinion.

I hope this helps.

Let me know how things go, and please follow me @AskAprilcom on Twitter and on Facebook at this link: [url][/url]. 🙂

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