I don’t like feeling like my actions effect her?

[Monzo235]

Hi. So this might sound a bit strange. But I’m late 20s and I had been single for almost 4 years until about 2 and a half months ago.

we became exclusive officially around 3 weeks ago. And at the time that felt right. Just felt like the natural progression and I wasn’t seeing anyone else anyway.

what I did not expect was this big of a leap. People are now asking when they’re gonna meet her. Asking what our future plans are. Asking if she wants kids and if it’s gonna stop me going ahead with my travel abroad plans etc.

I also don’t like feeling like I have to tell someone when I’m not wanting to message much right now. Or feeling like I have to explain myself. Or meet their parents etc.

I don’t want to feel like I owe anyone anything. Or that I am losing a chance at kids with someone. Or losing their chance. I feel that’s on them to tell me right now as I tried really hard with the last one on that to get her to tell me how she feels. I’m tired of it.

I know this sounds bizarre. But it’s stressing me out a lot. I don’t really know what to do. Even the feeling of ‘I have to break up with her because if I’m feeling this way I owe her x or y’ feels quite frustrating. I feel like I’m having to consider her before everything else.

Why another thread about this?

I have had the conversation with her. She’s told me if we get that far we can ‘have ‘discussions’ but it’s too early to know.

also what discussions are there. I don’t want to adopt. And if she’s too old for it then Id want to leave

So end the relationship. How many more times do you need to be told?

I really think then just relax a bit if you’ve already had an initial discussion. She obviously sounds reasonable and open.

You’re being judged a bit on here because you’ve posted before, but to me this shows that you take these things very seriously, which is good.

In contrast, a lot of men in your situation would be of the opinion that this is great for now and who cares how she feels if I go off her just when she starts wanting to have children. I think you sound like a really nice person in comparison.

I think you just need to give YOU a chance. Stop worrying about possible consequences - as a previous poster said, just tell people “it’s early days” and “we’re just taking things slowly” etc. Have a lovely time with this woman and just see how it goes.

You deserve to be happy as much as she does. Good luck.

I guess I’m just really worried about a bigger breakup down the line?

I want something that’s going to last now. That I can get excited about the future with. I just feel a lot of anxiety about the future right now

But you can’t know whether any relationship is going to last. At a couple of months in, you can’t possibly know whether it will last four months, twenty years or a lifetime. That is simply not a guarantee anyone can give you. Uncertainty is part and parcel of any relationship in its early stages.

How do you handle your intense anxiety about uncertainty in other areas of your life? What about work, for instance?

Yeah… I do know that. I guess just with her age I don’t feel I have that time to just go with it for a while. If it works, we need to think kids like asap.

I guess in my head I envisioned this relationship that’s like what I’ve got now. Except maybe we live abroad for a year, buy a house together, get a dog. Then think about kids. Right now I feel like this will have to skip basically all those stages if it works. And it makes me feel pretty anxious. shes already been through those stages with other people in the past. I never have.

um things like work it’s an issue too. Generally I give it a bit of time, maybe a month or 2, then start bringing up my concerns. If they do nothing about it, I try and find another job.

I don't understand this. If you're feeling this way, how will she know unless you tell her? What is it exactly you're expecting her to 'bring up'? You sound very young/immature.

Bloody hell, I thought you were going to say you're 17!

With the emotional intelligence of a teenager. You seem to like using MN for free therapy, and while I agree that you need it, I'd suggest you pay for some professional help.

ive told her many times I’m nervous about the future. She hasn’t once talked about the future. I’ve brought it up enough times. I may as well just end it if it’s me to do it again.

She’s 36 and I’ve told her multiple times kids are very important to me. Does she not see how that may well become an issue

No need to be horrible

Just factual. You know yourself you need professional support.

I’ve been for lots before. It doesn’t work

How much therapy have you actually had and what type? And how hard did you work at it?

Because what I’m seeing both from the fact that you keep posting the same thing on here, and the thought processes you describe, you don’t take responsibility for your anxiety being something that is your responsibility to deal with. You say that if your workplace doesn’t mitigate your anxieties by doing things, you move jobs. You are getting annoyed with your new girlfriend because you think she’s not considering your need to think several years ahead, and your desire to have children, live abroad, get a dog etc. She’s messing with your planned schedule .

But, bluntly, these things are not her problem. They’re yours. She’s responsible for her own emotional welfare, and for forging the kind of life she wants. You’re responsible for your own. She’s able to deal with uncertainty. You aren’t.

You cannot live a life that involves other people without uncertainty. It would probably be possible to evolve a work life that minimised uncertainty, though even then there will be changes of colleagues, the chance of redundancy etc. But having friends, being in a romantic relationship, having children — these all involve uncertainty. It’s built into their DNA. This woman may not want to keep seeing you in another month, or a year. She may decide she doesn’t want children at all. Or a dog. Or to live in the same overseas place.

In the early stages of a relationship, everything is uncertain. You barely know one another. And already, at the stage where most people are still discovering the other person’s favourite ice cream flavour, you’re fretting about years ahead. She might dump you tomorrow, OP! I’d dump someone who was posting repeated, fractious internet threads about how my age was going to mean he had to skip his planned life stages, and who kept telling me he was nervous about having children with me because he would have to do it sooner than planned.

You’re not in the right headspace for a relationship, and you’re certainly not in the right headspace for the colossal uncertainties of parenthood. Even conceiving a baby can be a hugely trying and long process of monthly hope and uncertainty, followed by disappointment.

Do yourself a favour and ho back to therapy.

OP, therapy will work if you are open minded and give it a chance. You sound much too anxious for an exclusive relationship and l sure you realise that.
lf you can't move beyond dating for fear of commitment then you should respectfully end this current one as its not fair on your girlfriend.
Wait until you have had professional help for your anxiety before you embark on any future relationships and preferably stick to casual dating.

I’m sure you have posted this before.

You sound like a typical avoidant. Leave her be and let her be with someone who isn’t going to string her along for surface level validation, ego boosts and sex. Or at the very least actually tell her that your fears of intimacy have been triggered. Bet you haven’t though, have you?

Avoidants who don’t work on themselves have no business pursuing romantic relationships.

Years. And it was CBT.

relationships involve uncertainty yes. Not many involve an 8 year age gap and worries that she’ll be infertile unless we move asap. That’s what’s getting to me

no that is not at all what I’m doing and I’ve told her all my worries.

An eight year age gap isn’t at all unusual.

But also, you chose this!

You could have dated a 24 year old for whom babies, if they ever come into her mind, are a distant blip on the horizon.

Out of all the women you could have chosen to enter into a relationship with, you chose a woman eight years older, and despite the fact that she isn’t on fire to have children, you’re two months into a relationship and already spoiling your present by anticipating, not only that you’ll have to skip your planned interim stages of living abroad and having a dog, but also to her having fertility problems! According to your two imagined scenarios, you either have to have children long before you want them, or not at all.

And yet this is what you chose. Why?

Go back to therapy, and work harder. Not CBT.

It is a little. Woman to man it’s odd.

Honestly. I didn’t anticipate feeling this way. It just kinda naturally moved along this way. And now I’m in deeper I’m realizing how much anxiety I actually feel around it.

At first we were just having a fun nice time enjoying the present. Now I’m feeling pressure

If a relationship makes you anxious, you shouldn't be in it.

It may be that you aren't ready for a relationship yet. It may be that you're just not suited to being in a relationship full stop. It may be that this isn't the right relationship for you.

But stop blaming her. You blame her age - which you knew before you started dating her, and which doesn't bother her. You say that she should be the one doing all the emotional heavy lifting as it's 'always' been you before... you've only been serious for 3 weeks, so exactly how demanding has she been in those 3 weeks? I suspect all the pressure comes from you, not her, so it's you that has to take the responsiblity to deal with it.

It reads as though she's perfectly happy to takes things as they come, to take her time, to let things unfold naturally, not to make big decisions right now - which is absolutely what it should be just weeks or months into a relationship.

Whereas you are over-thining, analysing, catatstrophising, second-guessing - but unwilling to do anything about it.

It isn't her job to sort out your problems. If you aren't happy, leave the relationship. Don't expect her to do it for you, that's just cowardly.

But how is ‘unfolding naturally’ a thing at all here? What actually is going to unfold without any kind of communication from her?

I could potentially just sit back, have sex, completely ignore the future, see another girl I fancy and go yeah I’m done with you now going to her. But I don’t do that because I take these things seriously and don’t want to end up alone at 35.

im stating to wonder if this is why she’s single at 36. Because men just take advantage of her being so chill about the future and then she’s shocked when they leave suddenly

OP, it’s not the job of your girlfriend of two months to assuage your chronic anxiety. It’s not her job to invent potential future problems when you’ve only been exclusive for a few weeks. Because they aren’t problems for her. You said on one of your other threads under the other username that she’d told you she wasn’t sure she wanted children, but she’d think about it with the right person, and that you needed to learn ‘to live in the grey’. She doesn’t know whether she’ll still be in a relationship either you next month, so why would she be worrying about whether or not she might have children with you years on?

The only behaviour you can control here is your own. If you want to live in another country, go and do it. If you want a dog, get one. If you want a relationship where children are something that might happen in eight years, find a different person with a longer remaining fertility window, and calm the fuck down. But in all cases, accept that your inability to manage your anxieties is the key issue here, and take responsibility for changing that.