Hi, April. I’ve been dating my boyfriend a little over 5 months now and I really feel that I love him (note: *feel*, I am aware that it could be infatuation in the early stages of a relationship). We’ve established that we were both after a serious relationship when we first began dating. But I think that he is a fairly ambitious person, he wants to travel, maybe work in another country someday. We’re still both in college, in our final years and we’re in our early-mid twenties. He mentioned that he would want to travel solo after graduation. I didn’t stop him, but I told him that I wouldn’t be comfortable with it going for more than 3 months which he was happy to compromise. He also mentioned that he may want to work in another country. I’m having a very hard time coping with this. I know that it’s still all theoretical, nothing is definite, heck it hasn’t even been determined that it is going to happen but the thought of it still makes me feel very sad about it. Only last week I asked him a hypothetical question about whether he would be able to enter a LDR with me and his response was that he would definitely attempt it but he can’t guarantee anything because he’s never experienced it. A response like this makes me lose a lot of confidence – he’s not confident about it yet he may want to consider it. Great. I feel quite betrayed in the sense that he can leave me so easily, that it appears only I will be affected by it. Hell, it even makes me question whether he even likes me that much. I am fully aware that I have no right to stop him, he’s doing nothing wrong, but I can’t help feel negative about the entire situation. I guess the real problem I have with LDR is how indefinite the long distance would last for, especially if he is going for his career. I know the problem lies with me, how can I change my way of thinking? Just the thought of him leaving makes me want to barricade myself from him, to distance myself to protect myself. If I care less about him then I can care less about him leaving. Because if I don’t do that, I don’t know how I will cope with it if he does decide to leave. But I don’t want to do that because I know it’s not healthy and also because I really do feel like I can be with this man for a long time. He doesn’t know I feel this way, I’m also hesitant to let him know because how horrible and evil will I sound if I try to stop him.
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