Not sure where to start but I've been going out with my BF for almost 8 years now. From the start I was up front about not wanting children or being interested in marriage. Over the years it has come up & I have always made it clear that my feelings are still the same.
About 2 years ago he moved away back to his home to take over a family business. This was something I knew he might do but not something he was sure about until it happened. I knew he had to try it and have been supportive of everything he is doing. It's something he is settled in now and has decided to make a go of the business at home.
I am very career oriented and my work is very important to me. I have worked my way up in the company I am in and have an interesting job that pays well. The problem is that it only exists in the city I live in currently. It's very big city based & although I have spent time looking there is nothing out there right now that would come close to the career I have here. I bought a house where I live, my friends and family are here & I always saw myself living here.
We are trying to make the long distance work but since he has moved the topic of our future is constantly in the background and has come to a head more than once. I find it difficult to talk about as I can't see a way to work things out for both of us.
More recently he has questioned my reasoning for not wanting children and has made it clear that he really doesn't see the point of a life without them. I just can't see myself having kids, I never have. I'm 32 now and I guess he was expecting this to change but it hasn't. I just can't picture my life with children in it.
He constantly asks me to move to him & try find a new job in anything, change career paths whatever. I'm beginning to really resent this. My biggest fear would be to lose my independence & I just don't see how I can maintain any independence or semblance of me if I lose my career, my family & my friends.
We get on really well and have lots of stuff in common - just not the important stuff! He is a fantastic person and I'm not sure I can imagine my life without him in it. The fact that all this has come to a head in the last couple of months is sitting in the background now and is dominating all our time together. It's starting to cause arguments , never arguments about what we really know is the problem, just stupid things.
I'm worried that I'm considering giving up a great relationship and in a couple of years even months time I will realise that I got it all wrong and I should have given up my life here & moved to be with him, that I will regret not having children and my chance to have them will be gone. Right now I know that this is not what I want and it hasn't been for 8 years but I don't know how to move on from where I am. I'm stuck in complete indecision and it's making me miserable.