Should We Open The Relationship Or Take A Break?

Monday | June 24, 2019

Love Letters Dating

Should We Open The Relationship Or Take A Break?

I’ve been with my boyfriend for a little over a year and our relationship is amazing. He’s become my best friend and we rarely have any conflict. He seems like the type of guy I’d love to marry. The problem is, we’re both pretty young (20 and 23), and he’s my first boyfriend. I always imagined myself having more time to be single, and that I’d have more relationship experience before finding someone who I’d want to marry.

Sometimes I find myself wanting to be single, but ending such a great relationship seems like a bad move. Should I just ignore my worries about staying in the relationship? Would opening the relationship or taking a break help or only lead to an eventual breakup? I don’t want to leave the relationship only to realize there’s nothing better out there.

– First Love Fears

It might help to stop thinking about forever. You say your boyfriend seems like the kind of guy you’d like to marry, but that kind of statement that suggests the decision is imminent. Has he talked about being on that path? If not, there’s no need to jump to that question. Think about what’s working (or not working) for you right now.

We tell a lot of letter writers to imagine what they want in the future and to make relationship decisions accordingly. But that advice doesn’t work for you if you’re missing out on the present. Do you really want a break right now? Or to date other people? Because it sounds like you’re only considering those ideas so you can be with your boyfriend later. You seem to want to do relationship homework to get a specific result, but it doesn’t work that way.

You can enjoy your boyfriend without knowing final answers, and if you do find yourself wanting to be single right now – and that feeling begins to take over your brain – you can make some new decisions.

But its possible that won’t happen. Sometimes people just … stay together.

– Meredith

Readers? Open the relationship?

Dating Fear Of Missing Out