My boyfriend and I just broke up after a 5 month long distance relationship. I went to visit him every 2 weeks for a long weekend and for all holidays. I was planning to move there once I was done with school. We got along very well. He is a family man. He thinks nothing is more important than family. His 6 year old daughter is his number 1 priority, and he always made that very clear. It took us 4 months to even have our first date because he always wanted her or his mom included in everything we did. The breaking point was when we had a discussion about traveling. I told him I wanted to see a few places before I die. Greece, Italy and England. He always made it clear that he doesn't want to travel anywhere too far from home as he did that when he was in the Navy. He has no interest in it. I always said I would go with my friends or my sisters if he wouldn't go. Well, it finally came out that he doesn't believe in people who are in relationships going on vacations without the other unless it is with their family. So I can go to Greece, but it has to be with my sisters or my mom. I cannot go with my friends. I cannot go to visit my friends whom I am moving away from to move to him. I get together with my high school girlfriends once a year for a weekend, and he doesn't believe in that. He thinks that is something single people do, but all of them are married with kids. I said I couldn't be with someone who couldn't support my dreams of traveling to these places and who woouldn't allow me to visit friends. I just can't wrap my head around his way of thinking. Am I thinking wrong? Should I make family the most important thing? I do want a family, and I do feel they are very important, but can't I have both? Am I being unreasonable wanting the option to visit my friends once in a while? He said he wants a simple and stable life, which is what I want as well, but I also want to see these places as well as my friends. I asked him if he would compromise and agree to one week a year. I would travel to see my friends, or to see something on my bucket list, and he said it wouldn't work. I know he was worried about other events that might come up that my friends might invite me to, and he would say no. My argument is - if I were to travel it might be 5% of our lives together. Isn't our relationship worth 5% of our lives? He said we think too differently, it would never work. Please help me understand his way of thinking.
---------------------------------Miss Emily's advice----------------------------
No one has to understand his thinking, because it is his thinking! You and I don't agree, but that doesn't make a difference. In my opinion, it's perfectly all right to visit friends, and travel with friends if your partner doesn't have the inclination. But it has to be an agreement with the couple, and it can't be out of coercion, or leave one partner home sulking. He's wedded to his idea of how family, and marriage should be. The cornerstone of a relationship has to be trust in order to make it work. And isn't that really the issue, here? Other key ingredients in a successful marriage are common interests and values. Clearly, this man, and you, part company in many crucial matters. If he wants to be joined at the hip with a spouse, so be it. She exists somewhere! He's rigid in his thinking, and that is the reason you should be glad, in time, that you and he didn't get any further in the relationship than you already did. I know it hurts, but nothing hurts worse than being in a relationship that turns out to be a prison. He was right. It wouldn't have worked.