[What2Do]

What’s worse, losing what might have been the love of my life or having never confirmed that she’s the one?

I’ve been dating and living with my first, real girlfriend and highschool sweetheart for 9 years. I saved her from a terrible family environment and despite 3+ reconciliations with her mother, they’ve all ended in complete disaster. We always remain open to her mother changing but that’s near impossible given her history.

That being said, after 9 years we’ve always expected to get married… her probably more so than myself. She was my first love and she’s had a couple relationships. Recently after increasing pressure to marry, I told her that I wasn’t sure because I couldn’t dedicate the next 50+ yrs of my life without pause. Expectedly, she was shattered, but understood and we continued as normal for awhile. On one hand, I know no one will take as good care of me and love me as much as her. But on the other hand, if I never try, I’m guessing I’ll regret not having had another relationship.

To compound things, she’s out of the country visiting her mother and getting medical/fertility treatments and is getting convinced by everyone (obviously most by her mother) around her to stop wasting her time with me. We both hope we’ll always be best friends, but if she breaks up with me she says she won’t see me for awhile to recover. I don’t know if I can live without her for any extended period of time and especially leaving her in THAT environment…

I’m willing to buy a ticket right now to save her from that situation and finish her treatment overseas but what then? Can I do that without deciding whether or not I want to be with her the rest of my life?

[Ask April Masini]

Do you want to do charity or do you want to get married? 🙄

It sounds like you take pride in having “rescued” your girlfriend from her family and now want permission to “save her.” 😐 It doesn’t really sound like she needs to be saved.

You are not, and should not be responsible for your girlfriend’s part in her dysfunctional relationship with her mother. You can talk to her about it, but there’s no way you should be getting on a plane right now to get involved with her relationship with her mom. It’s really none of your business. Sorry — but for some reason you feel like you know what’s right and wrong in your girlfriend’s life, when in reality, everyone has their own process of dealing with family, and you’re denying your girlfriend her own way of working things out by intruding — or, as you put it, “saving her”.

Nine years is a long time to be dating someone without marrying, and now that you clearly have pause about marrying her, I think it’s time for you to move on. You may lose her if you do, but the price you’d pay for being in a marriage you don’t want to be in is a lot steeper than breaking up with a girlfriend of 9 years who you’re not sure you want to marry, after all that time.

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