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Boyfriend and I are starting to seem like different people
20/F
My boyfriend and I have been in a long distance relationship together for about three months now. I live in the US and he's in Europe, but surprisingly it isn't the distance that has been making me question things.
I do love him, and we generally get along great. He came over to visit me and we clicked as well in person as we did over Skype, so that was absolutely amazing. Even though he's five years older than I am, there's never really much of a disconnect. I'm in my second year of college and he's in his first year pursuing a second degree, so we have pretty much the same daily concerns of university and work.
The problem is, lately we've been disagreeing on things that are pretty hurtful to me. His first degree was an English degree and he's all the time saying he wishes he had gotten something else because it's such a useless degree, which kind of stings because I'm a Creative Writing major. He always backtracks to say I'm actually learning a skill (writing) whereas he just got a general degree, but it doesn't hurt any less.
The second is social media. As previously stated, I'm a Creative Writing major, but I'm also minoring in Online Journalism. Online journalism works a lot with using social media and media in general to further articles online. I used to work as Editor-in-Chief for a site, I freelance, and am planning to continue to freelance after college as additional income, so this is pretty important to me. Not to mention I do a lot of networking on social media to meet other EiC's, writers, journalists in order to increase my contacts (which really helps with getting jobs). So pretty major thing in my life, but he just keeps calling it a useless sub-culture that's vapid and uses followers to make themselves feel popular. Which I get that some people do use it for that, but that's not all it is anymore and it's a big part of my degree, the career I'm working for, and my life.
The final major issue is friends and family. I grew up in a culture that put a lot of emphasis on the value of your relationships. My friends and my family mean a great deal to me, and I do value them over a lot of other things in my life. If I lost everything, but I still had my family and friends, I know I would eventually be okay and get back on my feet. My boyfriend and I talked about this tonight and he basically said that the Dutch are taught to be independent and that if his parents died tonight he wouldn't really care (which he's on good terms with them, so that's weird). I told him that it's really important to me to be in his life and that we've been dating a while and I've never even seen one of his friends. He made it very clear to me that he only has time for school and work, and when I asked him where does that leave me, he said he'll make time for me, but that's not really encouraging. I mean, if he could hardly care about his parents potentially dying, that doesn't bode well for actually wanting to take care of a girlfriend.
I guess, I really don't know what to do. All those things he's been saying are very hurtful to me because they all play a big part in my life and in my future. I really do love my boyfriend, and I want to be together, but I'm not sure if it's possible to be together and be happy when it seems he's always putting down things that are really important to me. Talking never works, he listens to me and then doesn't do anything to fix the issue. I've been trying to think of something, anything, that would help out in this situation, but I'm honestly at a loss.
Any advice?
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As an outsider looking in, what I see is not so much the problem of a long distance relationship. Though this problem will always be in the shadows until you two can at least be on the same continent. The primary problem in a long distance relationship is the lack of intimacy which cannot be had over Skype and I'm not just talking of sexual intimacy.
What I see as a problem you are seeing is one of cultural differences. Whenever people from two different countries get together there will be some cultural differences. Even when and American and Canadian get together as close as the two countries are there are some cultural differences. Same as with a person for Britain given as close as we are with the British.
Here you have you and American and him a Dutchman the cultural difference is huge. From what you have written he appears to be very opinionated then backs up and tries to soften what he says so it does not appear to be directed at you or your career. Don't get me wrong we Americans can be very opinionated too.
What I see is his attempt to discourage rather than encourage you in your life goals. This is not a recipe for a successful romance. I can only guess at why he is doing so. What I can say with a fair amount of accuracy though is online long distance romances are successful in less than 5% of the time and probably a lot closer to 1% or 2% of the time.
While it is not my place to tell you it is time to turn and run. I will tell you that with intersession coming this is a good time to take stock of your situation and evaluate with all honesty what you think will become of this relationship. Then take the appropriate action.
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When you write, as I do, what you create, whether articles, short story or anything else, that is a part of you, comes from you and it will be important and have that kind of significance. Women have the ability to create life so they will understand that easier than a guy can. Sounds like you want the kind of guy who WANTS to be supportive of all you have interest and talents in and ready to uphold you in whatever it is that you want to create. An example would be my husband telling me, he's willing to work hard and extra hours and bring in our only income to free me up to continue pursuing writing of novels. I did not have to ask him to offer, it came from deep within him because of his love for me.
If this is what you want, look for a guy who demonstrates the ability to care about you and what you pursue, to that degree. Does this guy meet that criteria. To me, it sounds like he doesnt but you have to decide that or see it for yourself.
Next issue, family and love: Some people are raised in families that never had any show of affection, it was more of duty to family rather than love of family that inspire them as far as family is concerned. He may be the type of person unable to connect with his feelings and his family may not be like him at all. So a person like this comes across as cold hearted, not able to care or show concern or consider anyone or anything to be important to them if it involves feelings. What is his passion/s. What things is he passionate about, because I find in myself, that my passions (nurturing and creatiing) are what drives me to follow and stick with my pursuits. time flies when it is something I am passionate about. Perhaps he doesn't understand himself yet and hasn't figured out what drives him yet, what his passions are. Lots of people don't learn to define who they are until they reach 28, 29 or 30 yrs of age. He may not be there yet. If so you may have to wait some time for him to figure out what he wants in life as far as schooling, vocation, a significant female in his life. If a guy is in love with a female, she'll end up as one of his top three priorities. a guy can handle having more and juggling them but if the girlfriend, fiancee, wife isn't a top priority, he plain old isn't in love. He may love some things about you but that's not the same as being in love with you. He may be incapable of showing love and affection to the degree you are. And that may never change, being as it's part of who he is. So if this is something you can not see yourself happily living with for the rest of your life, not expecting anything better than this, then he's not your guy. When you spend time with a person, feelings are bound to develop but whether these feelings are the kind needed for a life long partnership, it often isn't and that is something we all have to learn by going through the experience.
You have to learn that you can not change him into a guy who is perfect for you or even indeed there were bad habits, to help a person change them. That never works. A person needs to desire to change from within, on their own and the truth is,
"many people change so slowly it takes a lifetime to improve or some never change at all."(Got that from a psychiatrist my ex went to)
So you'd need to be okay with him as is, right now, with no chance of improvements at all and being able to handle that til your dying day if you intend to find a guy to marry. If by some miracle, he chooses to improve on some things for the better, hey, its like an unexpected gift for christmas or birthday. Choose wisely my dear and good luck. You can write to my column if there's anything else you need to clarify on the situation.
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