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To move or not to move with a boyfriend?
I'm having a hard time deciding what to do with my life from here on out. I don't know anyone else to ask and I used to come to this site for advice in middle school, so I thought I'd try again. Here is the situation.
I'm 22 and my boyfriend is 23. We live together in a college town in the midwest. We've been together for 2 years, and have been living together for 6 months. I graduate college in May and the lease on our apartment ends in the summer.
My boyfriend has already finished his degree and has set his sights on a graduate school in another state. I'm really happy for him that he wants to go to grad school. He has worked really hard to get admitted and save money over the past year, and for that I am really proud of him. I know he is going to love the town that the school is in and really thoroughly enjoy the masters program he's been admitted to. He's planning on moving up there when our lease ends in the summer, in time for the fall semester to start. The school is in a different state and a 13 hour drive from where we live now.
Of course, he is hoping and assuming that I am going to move there with him. Like I said, we already live together now, so by most people's standards, you can assume we're in it for the long haul. The problem is, I'm not sure I want to move to the grad school with him. On the surface, there are a few reasons I don't want to move there. First of all, I most likely can't get a job in my field there. I'm about to get my bachelors degree in journalism and there are zero jobs there even remotely related to journalism. Also, its very far north, and therefore cold and dark for much of the year. I know it sounds trivial, but I think I have a light case of seasonal depression disorder and I really don't thrive under those conditions. (As an endearment/pet name, by boyfriend calls me "Sunny" because he knows how happy I get when it's sunny out.) Its also far away from where any of my family and friends live. Living there would only be for a year, but those are just some of the surface-level reasons that this town really isn't the place for me.
But there are some deeper problems that make it difficult for me to decide whether I should move there or not.
The main one is that my boyfriend is very protective and jealous- and this has been an issue throughout our relationship. He got very upset when he found out that I had become particularly close with a male coworker early in our relationship, even though me and the coworker were no more than friends. (and just "work friends" at that- we almost never hung out together outside of work.) Since the coworker incident, my boyfriend has been paranoid about my fidelity. A few months ago, my boyfriend nearly got in a bar fight over a male friend asking me if I wanted to sing a kereoke duet with him. (I wish that was a joke, but unfortunately, it happened.) After the "Kereoke Incident" (as we now call it) I made it clear to my boyfriend that I seriously wanted to break up with him, but the next day, he signed himself up for anger management classes and has been attending them ever since. So I gave him a second chance at our relationship thinking, "Nobody's perfect, but someone willing to put serious effort into being a better person and a better partner is worth sticking around for." A true asshole will not regret being controlling, and an average joe will apologize for it, but someone making an honest attempt to fix a major behavioral flaw is a truly good person, right?
But the way I look at it, this controlling/jealous streak is two sides of the same coin when it comes to deciding to move to the grad school with him. On one side, it is a fair rationale to decide to not move with him. If I decided I didn't want to continue a relationship with someone as controlling/jealous as he is, I could live with that. The way he's treated me thus far has given me plenty of reason to end it, and maybe this move is the natural closing of our time together.
ON THE FLIP SIDE, I feel like moving to a new place with him could be like hitting the reset button on our relationship. It could give us a total second chance together in a town where we don't know anyone. We've got the lessons learned in our first apartment under our belts, and can move to the next one and put those into use. For example, when I told my boyfriend about my male coworker, I had no idea that it was going to absolutely disturb him like it did. I didn't know my boyfriend as well then, and I didn't know he had such a jealous personality. If I were to do it all over again, the obvious lesson learned is "don't rub your friendship with a guy in a jealous man's face." With this under my belt, I can make our relationship at the grad school go much more smoothly. It was a steep learning curve for sure, but I'm over the hump now.
In general, I really really don't want to break up with him. I love him very much and 99% of our relationship is nothing but true friendship, good sex, and having a hilarious time as roommates. Despite the bad picture I've painted, he is in general, a sweet and pretty selfless guy; he is self-reflective and feels serious regret when I told him he has hurt me. But I can't for the life of me make heads or tails of the decision to move with him next year. There's good reasons to break up and good reasons to stay together. Endless pros and endless cons. Half of me is saying "Move! Whats the worst thing that could happen? You hate it and break up?" and the other half of me is saying, "Are you actually considering moving to a podunk town thats dark half of the year for a man that controls you?" Isn't there something romantic about moving somewhere crazy for love in your early 20s? On the flip side, aren't I too young/wild/independent/good for him and his shit?
I know this is long, so MANY THANKS for reading and responding. Its really tearing me up so any advice is appreciated. THANK YOU.
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From what you have written I believe you have reasons to go and to stay. The problem you have is in deciding which reasons outweigh the others. For us to make this decision for you would be wrong as this has to be your decision. All we can do is point out what we believe are the good and the bad points and what we believe are the ones that may out way the others.
From what you have written there are not a lot of really bad points. From what I see the biggest of the down side is: that you think you have a "light case of seasonal depression disorder." This is only a problem if you do not seek treatment for it. This problem like most clinical depressions is easily treatable with medication. Yes there are some side effects to the medication one of which could be a decreased libido. If this is only going to be for a year this is something you could probably deal with.
The problem with his controlling and jealousy could have been a big deal if he wasn't will and did not seek help for it. The fact that he was "visibly hurt" and that he took actions to resolve his problem says a great many things about him and how he feels about you. It is not easy to change something like this as it is a behavioral disorder if you will. It is not mental disorders which are easier to fix. This is something he will be shown how to deal with and will have to work at it daily to control.
Depending how long he has been attending anger management classes you should know or see by now how well he is able to control this disorder. I believe this is something he is not doing for himself but he is doing for you. This again shows how much he respects and yes even his love for you.
As for job prospects; for one year with the Degree you have even though there may not be a Journalism job there will or could be jobs associated with Journalism. You really won't know until you get there. Journalism opens a host of jobs in the field of writing, commercial broadcasting and associated work to those fields. You just need a job for the year he is in Grad school not a career type job.
What I feel you need to do before you make any final decision is have a discussion on what his plans are for after grad school. He is waiting for you to graduate before moving. If you feel it is possible that you and he can make a life together. Then you must look past next year and see how your plans and his plan mesh.
Where does his degree take him? Does he plan to go somewhere where you can also put your education to work or does his plan take him to a remote area where your career remains on hold? You two also need to talk about your relationship. Does he see this relationship moving towards making a life together, is this where you want the relationship to go? Children are also important to talk about at this time if you both see this relationship moving towards making a life together. When and how many. Marriage is a 50/50 partnership. What roles do you each see for yourselves in a marriage?
The pros and Cons you write about workout to be about equal. So I would feel you need to look ahead to where you will go after grad school. Based on those conversations is what I feel is the best way to decide whether or not to end the relationship. Should it be that your plans for life are so different that a compromise cannot be made then it is better to end the relationship now than a year from now when it will be much harder on both of you.
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You are clearly thinking about this in all the right ways, but there are some serious red flags here I want to draw your attention to right away.
First off, the idea that moving will 'reset' your relationship. Stomp this idea out. Laugh it down. Pinch yourself whenever you find yourself thinking this. That's the same faulty logic that leads people to think that marriage, or having a baby, will solve their problems. These major shifts do NOT solve existing problems, they ALWAYS amplify them. So remove that from your list of pros, it's nonsensical.
Secondly, you are still blaming yourself for his anger reactions. It's okay to acknowledge that you aren't perfect, but when you start to build strategies to 'keep from rubbing his face' in an innocent friendship, you are taking your responsibilities much, much too far. If he has an anger management issue, your job is not to pacify him, your job is to label the irrational behaviour and remind him it wont be tolerated. Women who seek to pacify irrational anger in their partners end up insecure and battered women, always walking on eggshells. Also, when you pacify someone who is jealous and irrational, you are telling them they they have legitimate reasons to behave the way they are ('cause you wouldn't keep secrets/tell white lies/try to keep him calm if you didn't have something to hide. right?)
Honestly, I think there could be a lot of great things about moving. I don't know what forms of writing or journalism you are interested in, but going to a city where there is a less of a market for those skills can actually help you gain real experience. Because there is less of a market, there is also less competition. And where there is any college or university, there will be at least some market for writers (not to mention, of course, the internet).
Even seasonal affective disorder, although massively sucky, can be dealt with pretty easily. 13 hours isn't so far away you can't go home for days at a time during the winter, and most people I've spoken to and worked with find SAD light boxes really effective.
So, I'm not really giving you a solid answer here, but if I had to be 100% honest with you, I'd say it sounds to me like you are leaning to not going, because you aren't confident your boyfriend is managing his anger and you aren't thrilled with the behaviours that irrational anger brings out in you. These other things (work and SAD) are certainly valid, but they aren't the major items. The major, number one item here is whether you want to continue to this relationship or not, and you are genuinely torn about that. Put the rest of this aside and just focus on that: Is this someone you want to be in a relationship with anymore?
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Thanks hon for going into detail and sharing exactly what you feel and are thinking. It helps me to know what to tell you.
You mentioned there are as many pro's as there are cons to the relationship and making a decision.
On the pro side, the good stuff you said about your relationship makes me think of a video I viewed recently on relationships and shall share with you.
A woman on the panel said something about women getting attached to the 'idea' of a relationship, loving how it feels to be part of a couple and what she had invested and experienced in the relationship, the fun times, the laughter, the passion and sex...etc. Yes all good things but it can hold a person back from deciding to end a relationship that their gut is telling them to end for whatever reasons. This same woman says that all women are naturally intuitive. I agree. Sometimes we don't listen to our intuition, that little voice of reasoning inside of us that keeps telling us something. We always know the answer. So you already know the answer to whether to follow him or stay.
I quote the female in the video, "It's that I don't want to ask the question, because I don't want to get real with myself, I don't want to face it. So you live a lie with yourself." And thats one of the worst things you can do, lie to yourself. I did that in my first marriage. So be real with yourself. The issue isn't really about you toughing it out for a year to be with him while he's up north and you have to find a short term job not in your field until you both move again somewhere south where both of you can find employment in your fields. The issue is that your inner voice, your gut instinct, your subconscious mind are all telling you that something is not quite right about the relationship. Is it the anger? He's getting treatment for that. Is it the controlling? Good chance that won't disappear with anger now controlled. A controller will just get more subtle at controlling their partner instead of using emotional outbursts. Is it the jealousy? You can not make excuses for him, lying to yourself that its partly your fault, you provoked him.... that you shouldn't have done this or that..etc
Jealousy arises from a fear, usually a fear of loss or of not being good enough and can indicate a low self esteem. Jealousy and controlling, work hand in hand. I am talking out of experience here. I know what it is like to have a man like that. When you said " maybe this move is the natural closing of our time together" you were starting to listen to yourself.
Your life is not the relationship. The relationship with him is only one part of it. The other parts, are your job, your friends, your family, your favorite pastimes and hobbies, the goals and hopes and dreams of yours, etc... but too many women decide to give this all up for a guy and that is the wrong move to discard the many parts of your life, even for a short while, in choice of the one part. I hope this helps you sort out what you must do. Heres the video
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
Most of what I wanted you to hear is in the first 15 minutes but theres a short bit at about 34 minutes in and also at 42. minutes.
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Before I give my advice, I want to throw in there that for once, I am truly impressed with your intelligence. Not many people seem to have any sort of common sense these days so props to you.
On the down side my friend, I would say moving in with the boyfriend seems like a bad idea. One thing that really strikes me is this.. (He is jealous, protective and has anger problems and the big one is that you once before tried to break up with him) Although the boyfriend decided to seek help for this problem, You seem like you have your mind made up that moving isn't the right choice for you. Again, I really got to give it too you. I am very impressed that you are putting yourself first and deciding what is right for YOU and not making the mistake of doing what satisfies other people.
I think it would be in your best interest to stay home. Your friends and family should come first before your relationship. If anything where to ever happen between the two of you, You would need a plan B. *sigh* Likewise this relationship wouldn't work in the long run, The reason I say this is because you were on the rocks once before. The guy has jealousy problems and along with this problem is trust issues. If he truly trusted you then he would have no need to be jealous and a relationship without trust, Is no relationship at all.
Hugs, You are smart and I wouldn't tell you if you weren't. You're heart just isn't in it
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