Do I leave my good relationship and start again at 30???

[GoldfinchWinter]

I’m 30, been with my partner throughout all my twenties. He is wonderful: kind, loyal, loving, thoughtful. I love him (I think). We have recently become engaged. But for the past year or so, I’ve been waking up every morning with a feeling of dread and anxiety. I’m not excited about the wedding - I’m fact, I feel sick when I think about it. He wants us to sell our flat and buy a house together and the idea makes me feel terrified, not excited at all. I feel often like I just want to live on my own, and keep on searching for one bedroom flats and imagining life on my own.

And yet - he’s my favourite person to spend time with. We broke up for a while before in our early twenties and I spent the whole time wanting to get back with him.

I’ve been having some counseling for anxiety this year and I don’t know if this is me just being anxious about the commitment, or whether this is a sign that I should end things. I am so worried about breaking his heart, and my heart, and about being alone forever. I know I want children one day. He would be an amazing, incredible dad. I can’t imagine life without him.

I’ve also spent a big part of this year questioning my sexuality, and have concluded I’m bisexual. I’ve talked to my boyfriend lots about this and he’s been very kind throughout this. But I’m also wondering if maybe I’m just gay, and have made a mistake all along and this is why I can’t feel properly excited about the future with him, despite how amazing he is.

I just feel so lost. I am terrified about starting again at 30, and never finding anyone even half as wonderful again. What do I do? Do I just focus on making the relationship I have work? All my friends are settling down and getting married and I just feel like I’ll be completely alone. I wish I could stop time.

Any advice from anyone who has left a relationship at 30 despite wanting kids would be so appreciated, or just any words of wisdom at all. This dread and anxiety in the pit of my stomach is just not going away.

@tinybuddha @FirewomanSam thank you for sharing your stories. I’m so pleased you’re happy now. I know I have lots more thinking to do.

I do feel so completely loved by my partner and I worry I will never be loved by anyone again like this.

I'm sure you do realise, though, that you can't marry him because he loves you. And it does, again, smack of you using him as a comfort object rather than being a partner to him. He can't love you enough for both of you, and he can't love you enough to make you happy if he's not right for you.

@GoldfinchWinter I don't think there is a religious agenda although maybe it touches on spirituality? Although I don't remember coming across that at all when I read the blogs etc. Btw I am similar age, recently got a house and got engaged. Feel well panicky because it's a new stage in my life which brings about a sense of loss of my "old life"/any other "potential lives" I might have had. Plus the pandemic has caused major over thinking and anxiety in general. It's definitely good to have a good think though and see how you feel :)

I left someone at 30 (actually I think it was a few weeks after turning 31). He was wonderful, but I wasn't excited by the idea of marrying him.

Since then (15 years) I have not had a relationship that's lasted longer than three or four months, and I've met almost exclusively commitmentphobic, unreliable liars.

But then you might meet someone new within a month, as my ex did, so who knows? Perhaps you should speak to a counsellor to try to work out what you want.

OP, I married a man when I was very young, 20. I knew it wasn’t right but could never quite put my finger on why. He was an abusive arse but that is by the by here. I realized at in my late 20s that it’s because I had actually never been attracted to a boy or man in my life. I’d always been told that marriage and kids was my destiny so I’d just gone along with it. What I’d known when I was young, then repressed, is that I am only attracted to females.

I came out when I was 31, left my then arsehold of a H, took my DS and started a new life. I was in a relationship with a woman for several years but we broke up nearly 9 months ago and I’ve been single since.

There is something different about being single when you know what it is you want in a partner. When I was trying to be straight I was worried that nobody would want me. Now I know I’m a lesbian I’m happy enough just to wait for the woman I want to come along. I’m quite comfortable with who I am so I suppose I’m not worrying about needing someone else to validate me.

It’s not directly helpful for your situation at the moment but it is something to bear in mind, that maybe you’re only worried about not finding anyone else because you feel you need someone else to validate you. If you can spend some time finding out who you are, when you do grow into yourself you won’t need to worry, because you will validate yourself, and the person you do eventually find to be with will be an addition to your life, not a prop.

Re your current relationship: There is thinking somebody makes you complete because they add to your life and make it happier, and there is thinking somebody makes you complete because they stop up a gap in your life that you’re afraid to look at. Be very careful not to confuse the two, because gaps in your life will never be filled by someone else, and being afraid to look at something doesn’t make it go away.

Ah, thank you everyone. You’re all so great.

@Nunoftheother - are you happy you decided to end the relationship though, or do you regret it? This is what I’m worried about.

@Whatisthisfuckery - thank you for sharing this. It’s really tricky. I am pretty sure I’m bi, but it is something I know I need to explore more. Your last paragraph - about covering up a gap in my life that I’m afraid to look at - sounded scarily resonant. Recently I was actually looking at a diary from when I was 12 and I’d written about my dream life - I’d imagined a cottage in the countryside with horses, and I’d written: ‘I may or may not have a partner, but I’ll have lots of friends’. I thought it was interesting I hadn’t written boyfriend/ husband, but also that maybe I am deep down just programmed to be alone, even though I find that idea terrifying right now? I am so scared about not having children though, even though I know rationally about sperm donation and adoption. I also know so many decisions I’ve made in my life are to do with making other people happy, and worrying about their feelings. I don’t even really know what I myself want, as it’s so closely linked to the happiness of people I love.

@Respectabitch - I hear what you’re saying about the idea of a comfort blanket. But I also feel like he’s my person - really, he’s the only person I never feel fed up with or annoyed by, I love spending time with him, and we just ‘work’ together. Pre-pandemic, travel was a huge part of our lives and he is the best traveling companion. I would go on mini-breaks with friends and think ‘I can’t wait to come back here with him, then we can explore this city properly’. I trust him so much too - more than I’ve ever trusted anyone - and I feel like he’s my flesh and blood and a part of me, if that makes sense. Unless that in itself is a comfort thing, too? All so confusing.

The girl I mentioned before, who has recently come out, was in a serious relationship with a guy. I know them both well, and they have been very close for a long time. It has been so interesting listening to her story. Not only the whole part about wanting to be 'normal' but also, she and this man are really really close. I would say they are like soul mates, but with the emphasis on mates. One reason it was so hard for her to come out, was that she is so close to him, they are best friends. But she came to realise that while they were very close as friends, the sexual spark wasn't there, and however much she tried, she couldn't make it be there. So she left.

He is heart broken, and she is struggling with having rejected her closest friend. but she is also like a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis, and ther is an overwhelming sense of relief.

@GoldfinchWinter

Ah, thank you everyone. You’re all so great.

@Nunoftheother - are you happy you decided to end the relationship though, or do you regret it? This is what I’m worried about.

@Whatisthisfuckery - thank you for sharing this. It’s really tricky. I am pretty sure I’m bi, but it is something I know I need to explore more. Your last paragraph - about covering up a gap in my life that I’m afraid to look at - sounded scarily resonant. Recently I was actually looking at a diary from when I was 12 and I’d written about my dream life - I’d imagined a cottage in the countryside with horses, and I’d written: ‘I may or may not have a partner, but I’ll have lots of friends’. I thought it was interesting I hadn’t written boyfriend/ husband, but also that maybe I am deep down just programmed to be alone, even though I find that idea terrifying right now? I am so scared about not having children though, even though I know rationally about sperm donation and adoption. I also know so many decisions I’ve made in my life are to do with making other people happy, and worrying about their feelings. I don’t even really know what I myself want, as it’s so closely linked to the happiness of people I love.

@Respectabitch - I hear what you’re saying about the idea of a comfort blanket. But I also feel like he’s my person - really, he’s the only person I never feel fed up with or annoyed by, I love spending time with him, and we just ‘work’ together. Pre-pandemic, travel was a huge part of our lives and he is the best traveling companion. I would go on mini-breaks with friends and think ‘I can’t wait to come back here with him, then we can explore this city properly’. I trust him so much too - more than I’ve ever trusted anyone - and I feel like he’s my flesh and blood and a part of me, if that makes sense. Unless that in itself is a comfort thing, too? All so confusing.

Op what you say at the end here “I feel like he’s my person, the only person I never feel fed up with or annoyed by” That is how I feel about my DH. That sounds like a very close and happy relationship, so I wonder what it is that you are yearning for that is missing in your life ? Perhaps it is nothing to do with relationships at all, it is something else within you that feels unfulfilled. No other person can give complete fulfilment, that comes from a mixture of things depending on the individual. For some women it is children and family, for some a really interesting career, or both. A house, a garden, travel, work, creativity. I am worried that you might be pinning things onto your relationship that are simply things within you that need more of an outlet. This has been a year that has made all of us in relationships spend more time together, and less time with friends, so this could also be making you feel slightly stifled and longing for some freedom. I felt neutral about your relationship, from your posts up until this point it was hard to tell what you were feeling, but this post is pretty much what I would say of DH, what my closest happily married friends would say of their husbands too. I wonder what it is you expect a happy relationship to be , if not this ? How would you feel if he wanted out of the relationship, if he met someone else ?

Also “sperm donation or adoption “ ? Sperm donation has many complications, and single motherhood is really hard. Adoption is not a given, it takes a particular sort of person to be a good adoptive parent, and adoptive children have different and often complex needs. It is not a fall back option for not finding a partner.

It sounds to me from your posts like you do love him and want to be with him, but you have an anxiety about what other people would think if your split up and this anxiety is trying to 'talk you out of it' by making you ponder about if you might be gay, or what the wedding might be like, or what people would think if your relationship doesn't work out. Anxiety doesn't want you to be happy, so it's keeping on telling you there must be something wrong about it.

But I'm just some random on the internet, it sounds like this needs talking out with a therapist to establish if there is something not right about the relationshop, or whether this is just anxiety not wanting you to have the nice things.

Why don't you ask yourself how you would feel in 5 years if you hadn't found anyone, realised it was a mistake, but your partner actually moved on and married and had a baby on the way?

How would you feel if you left, and then subsequently he found someone else and settled down with them?

@lighteningsunshine

Why don't you ask yourself how you would feel in 5 years if you hadn't found anyone, realised it was a mistake, but your partner actually moved on and married and had a baby on the way?

I don't really know if that question is going to add a lot of light. Of course OP is going to feel devastated at that idea right now. I was really cut up when an ex moved on even though I was decidedly not in love with him (in fact, I was in love with someone else) and we weren't that well suited.

I think there is still a real tendency, on here and in the culture generally, to see any good and reliable man that you care for as something to hold onto at all costs. But a good and reliable man that you care for is sometimes best as a wonderful friend rather than a husband. I don't think OP needs to be making decisions from a panic scarcity mindset of "this might be the only good man that I love in the world" right now.

OP, there are two things you are certain to encounter on MN. The first are women who think that if your male partner isn’t beating you black and blue then you must keep him at all costs. The second are homophobes who will tell you any feelings you have of questioning your sexuality are just a faze/because you’re scared of committing to a man/because you’re depressed/anything that means you’re not in any way homosexually inclined. Do not listen to either of these groups.

Nobody can tell you how to feel or what you questioning your sexuality means, only you can figure that out. In the mean time you would be very well advised to not make any commitments. Some things are easily got into and very hard to get out of, and trust me, divorce is no less painful than calling off a wedding and house purchase but it’s much more expensive.

There is nothing wrong with leaving a relationship at 30. I left one at 29 and it's the best decision I could have made. In my situation the relationship wasn't good though. Tbh I'm struggling to see the problem with yours - he is amazing, never annoys you, you get on great, can't imagine life without him, you'd be devastated if you were apart, great sex life. You want to be in a relationship and you want children. What else is there?

I think sometimes as we get older, we sense that doors are closing and get a general sense of dissatisfaction, and panic that we haven't made the "right" decisions. It doesn't help to blame our dp though. Imagining your one bedroom apartment - most of us daydream about different lives we might have had, but we can't have them all.

OP, there are two things you are certain to encounter on MN. The first are women who think that if your male partner isn’t beating you black and blue then you must keep him at all costs. The second are homophobes who will tell you any feelings you have of questioning your sexuality are just a faze/because you’re scared of committing to a man/because you’re depressed/anything that means you’re not in any way homosexually inclined. Do not listen to either of these groups.

Thats a bit unfair. Firstly, the dp here isn't just not "beating her black and blue". He is described as the most amazing person ever, who loves her, and who she loves and wants to be with.

Secondly, it's not homophobic to point out the only reason OP mentions as to why she thinks she could be gay is that she isn't excited about a wedding. That does seem like clutching at straws a little.

And how many people do you know exactly who have suspected themselves to be bisexual or a lesbian just because they’re a bit apprehensive of getting married?

Nah, as a lesbian who came out at the OPs age I can assure you I’ve heard it all before, many, many times, and each time it has come from somebody who would be far more comfortable if I was straight.

Nobody can say why the OP is feeling the way she is, but clearly she is feeling these feelings for a reason. Telling her she’s just scared of getting married and that she should push it all down and marry the perfect man is not the kind thing to do. Her DP might be perfect on paper, but clearly the OP is not happy. Somebody can be wonderful in every way but they can not be the one for you. Just because you like the idea of a perfect man, doesn’t mean this man is perfect for the OP, that is if the OP decides a man is perfect for her at all. Keep your own fantasy man out of it.

And how many people do you know exactly who have suspected themselves to be bisexual or a lesbian just because they’re a bit apprehensive of getting married?

Well I know one - the op. It's what she said so I have no reason to disbelieve her.

I am perfectly comfortable with you being a lesbian. I'm bi myself, that how I know there's a little more to it than just fear of weddings - mainly the whole sexual attraction to both men and women thing.

I am not saying the op has to get married, I'm just saying there are many reasons in life that may cause us to feel existential unhappiness. It is not always our partner holding us back, sometimes it's ourselves or it's just life in general.

OP has specifically said that she has realised she has sexual feelings for women. That doesn't mean she is gay,but the idea isn't ludicrous.

I don't know why the OP has such intense anxiety, and I wouldn't advise her to dump him tomorrow any more than marry him, but my Spidey sense does reckon there's a bit more going on here than just being afraid of happiness. It's for her to work out, but it's clearly best for her not to make any big decisions before she can understand what is going on with her better.

Hi OP, am not good at the helpful 'working out what the real problem is' stuff that so many posters are, but can share my slightly similar story in case it helps you.
I have never been attracted to women at all, just men. But I am not particularly 'passionate' - I'd never had a boyfriend for more than a few weeks because I just got bored of them. I fancied men in theory, but just wasn't that much into any actual real men, if that makes sense! When I was 30 I started dating a very good male friend, who I fancied a bit (but not loads). He liked me a lot. I loved spending time with him - he was very kind, easy-going, generous, loving, and if I brought up 'problems' in the relationship he would listen and we'd discuss them and he would change his behaviour if needed.
After a couple of years we were still together, and I thought he might soon ask me to marry him so I thought a lot about what I wanted. I still fancied him (in my own way, which was not OTT but just a low-level fancying, and the most I'd ever experienced for anyone) but I don't think I was 'in love' with him. I loved him like a dear friend, and I showed love to him by my actions, but I didn't have that lust-love/head-over-heels love/being IN love. I'd never had that for anyone. I wondered if I was capable of it. I did a lot of research into what makes a good marriage, and the main thing seemed to be that you have to work hard at a marriage (ie being 'in love' is not enough) and that the most important personality traits are kindness and listening to each other. I decided to marry him because he was a wonderful human being and I knew we would both work hard to make a marriage successful.
When he did propose, I accepted and then we started planning the wedding. I was terrified of the actual wedding day because I am shy and I hated the idea of people all staring at me. But I was not at all worried about the being-married part because I had chosen to marry a man who suited me. We weren't living together before we were married, so it was quite a change for us, kind of like the buying a house together that you might be doing with your DP. For me it was important to separate out my fear of the wedding day itself (and the worry of family being unhappy etc) from the important bit - the marriage. Maybe it would help you to write down the various things and see how you feel about them separately. EG - how do I feel about the wedding day? How do I feel about buying a house together? How do I feel about being married to him? etc.
My story ends well. My husband is the best man I've ever known. I actually fell head over heels in love with him on honeymoon - no idea why but maybe I subconsciously needed the security of marriage before I allowed my feelings to run away, or something crazy like that! I have to say though, that even if I had not fallen in love with him, it would still have been the best decision I've ever made. Marriage to my best friend is phenomenal - we spend so much time together (especially lockdown) and I have never got sick of him or annoyed at him once! Most of life is the little things, so the fact that you love doing the little things with your DP is hugely important.
I know my situation is a little different to yours, but some bits are the same. I'm not saying that I think that you should do what I did necessarily, but just that I think that kindness and enjoying someone's company is a huge huge deal. I personally chose to rate these things higher than a feeling of being 'in love'. Of course it would be lovely to have all the ducks in a row, but I guess this doesn't happen for everyone!
Hope it helps x

I don't think you should go ahead with the wedding until you know for sure what you want.
I'm almost 30 and before last year I had always been in straight relationships. I did alot of counselling and work on myself for the last 4 years of being single and found that I liked women. At the end of last year I found the most amazing woman. So I guess you could say I've started again.
But do not be scared about leaving someone for fear on not finding anyone else. Don't be with someone just to be with them.
You need to be happy and sometimes need to be selfish and put yourself first and not to worry about someone else.

@Respectabitch

OP has specifically said that she has realised she has sexual feelings for women. That doesn't mean she is gay,but the idea isn't ludicrous.

Isn’t that the definition of gay?

@Tomatoface2

That’s a really lovely story.

I had the same thing with my then BF (Now DH of 10 years) I thought I should break up with him as I had a feeling of dread/anxiety but it turned out that I was anxious about something else entirely that I just didn't want to acknowledge. Thankfully I worked that out in time and dealt with the underlying problem.
Also I'm bisexual but never had a proper relationship with a woman so there is a part of me that feels like I've missed out on something but not enough to leave my DH for.

Isn’t that the definition of gay?

Yes. Obviously. Because "100% gay" and "100% straight" are the only options.

Thank you for demonstrating @Whatisthisfuckery's point for her.

Isn’t that the definition of gay?

She could be bi if she's also attracted to men.