I might break up with my boyfriend, but the consequences terrify me.
It’s not anyone’s fault that I want to break us up. We both had struggles in the past and we tried to tackle them, but we cannot change anymore without losing who we are fundamentally. It all comes down to us being too different to be a healthy couple in the long run, and we’ve both slowly come to that realisation.
But I’m scared. I’m scared how he will react when I tell them it might be better if we’re over; I was his first girlfriend and he’s never experienced this kind of heartbreak before. I don’t want to see him sad, but I’m terrified he might be relieved.
I’m scared that I wasted 3 years of my life being with someone who in the end wasn’t right for me.
And most of all, I’m scared I will never find anyone else again. All my friends are in seemingly happy relationships and it hurts seeing that I don’t have that now. I’m in uni with the widest social net I’ve ever had, and still the pool with single people is already shrinking. My standards are high and right now, there is no one I can think of with whom I might be happy in the long run. So how can I find someone when my social pool has shrunk to maybe 50 people, 40 of whom are married, if I can’t think of anyone of the 100 single people I know now?
I’m leaving uni soon, going into a field with people who are traditionally ambitious, “I’ll walk all over you so you cannot walk all over me”-minded and egotistical. Our field of work is competitive and if you don’t have the inner assumption that you’re better than everyone else, you will fail. I already know that that is nothing for me and that I cannot be with someone with that mindset. The workplace is probably not the place where I’ll find someone I can love.
And even if I did, it gets so much more complicated when I’m older. The majority of the people I know will be either married or recently divorced, which brings its own set of difficulties such as having children and alimony disagreements.
If I cannot find anyone now, I might not find anyone ever. Nearly everyone I know who married did so with someone they met in college.
I’m terrified of ending up alone. Of being the one who’ll never have a wedding. Of being the one who others assume must be miserable because she has no one to come home to. Of not having the experience of being loved for who I am.
I think I should break up, but the consequences terrify me.