I want a committed relationship

LegacyUser

I'm recently out of a relationship. It was a year and a half we loved each other but for various reasons it just wasn't meant to be. Anyway, during the course of the relationship (the last couple of months especially) I realised that part of the problem is that I'm looking for a life-partner/husband and most people my age aren't.

I'm 24, relatively happy and confident in my life, my career is going places etc. I know exactly what I want out of life and one of those things is someone to share it with. I know that 24 is still quite young, and there are still things I'd like to do and places I'd like to see but I don't see why I couldn't have a partner doing these things with me?

I'm so sick of my age groups style of dating. "Nothing serious, just fun." I want someone who will commit. I don't want to have to waste months or even years sharing myself with someone before they're finally comfortable enough to talk about whether or not they want kids, or to get married, or to live in the city or the country, or whatever. How am I supposed to figure out if someone is a suitable partner if I'm basically supposed to pretend that I don't care what happens between us?

I really wish I was a Christian because I've spent quite a while reading up on their dating "customs" and while I don't necessarily believe in marriage in the way it exists today, the idea that your life together should be the most important thing, that you hold central in your relationship, even at the earliest stages appeals to me so much.

My ex was wonderful, I loved sharing my live with him. And now he's just not part of it any more. That's sixteen months of my live that I just have to sort of compartmentalise and forget about, and that's what upsets me more that losing him. I want someone who can be there forever.

P. Breathnach

Some people are ready for long-term commitment at younger ages than others. There is nothing wrong with that.

But you can't expect to know in the early stages of a relationship if the man you are seeing is equally ready for long-term commitment. You can probably filter out a lot of men who are obviously at the "I'm young and having fun" stage. After that, you need to invest a little time in a relationship to gauge the prospects.

Don't lay your cards on the table too early. You might scare off even a suitable man.

thefeatheredcat

Op you sound like you're still hurting from the end of your relationship and maybe missing your ex and what ye had..... but it's not like you've wasted those months together utterly, though is it? Have a think back over and realise that while it hasn't resulted in a life long commitment for whatever reason, it has given you insight and experiences and made you think about relationships even more, and to me, that's not a waste, or something to toss away as something to forget about and dismiss. Nor either would have been the affections in the relationship or what you have shared. You still get to enjoy the memories in the future and have a base line to compare in future relationships. Again, not a waste. OK time may have been wasted, but it sounds like it may have been a good relationship but just not to be, and that is a heck of a lot better than slowly realising that the person you're in a relationship is not a very nice person and treats you badly and staying in the relationship, because that stops someone from finding someone better, someone they deserve while they stick around with a mean or unpleasant partner.

It's great that you know you want a committed relationship and you want something that leads somewhere.... there's nothing wrong with that. It might not happen over night, but maybe you know yourself that you're not going to settle for example, a whirlwind romance that fizzles out, or one night stands and if that's what you feel, that's perfectly fine. You can weed out guys who would be wasting your time, you can be aware of which guys are just looking for a night's fun... and you can be open after getting to know someone about talking about exclusivity and where the relationship is going, finding out if you are on the same page. It is something you should feel comfortable about bringing up and about talking about and something you do need to know because then you can know if you are on the same page and decide if you want to stay or not in a relationship.

But not everyone knows by age 24, by 30 or by 34 and so on that they want marriage or a serious commitment, not everyone feels ready to settle down, and some people may never be ready for that. But that doesn't mean there aren't people who do know if they're ready for a serious commitment, there are people out there who feel the same about commitment and are looking for what you are looking for too. But you might have to look a while, try different ways of meeting people, through groups, hobbies, work, friends, family and keep an open mind. You might have to spend time with someone a while to know where you stand in a relationship but that doesn't mean it's a waste either, because again you'd be getting more insight, especially insight into yourself and having new and different experiences.

Czarcasm

OP I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but you can only control yourself, you cannot control the way other people think, feel, react, and you've got a scary level of control going on there in your post.

Granted, you could find hundreds of guys right now who would slot nicely into your life and do everything on your terms and behave like your little lap-dog, but nobody could keep up that pretence forever either, and that's all it would be - a pretence.

I don't know what Christian "customs" you're referring to, but as a Christian myself (Roman Catholic) and having studied numerous religions, people are still people at the end of the day, and whether they're religious or not isn't really relevant if you're not Christian yourself. My wife is atheist, and there's no guarantee we'll be together forever without making an effort at working on our relationship. You come across in your post like you have absolutely no idea the amount of work, compromise, effort, that goes into making a relationship work. You get out of it what you put into it, and if you only want everything on your terms forever, and expect the relationship to last, well, I don't mean to be funny, but that would indeed be nothing short of a miracle!

You're only 24 yet OP, and as hard as it may be for you to hear it, you sound like you have an awful lot of growing up and maturing to do before you can appreciate what a relationship is really about, and what's involved in making it work so that both parties in the relationship are happy.

Typer Monkey

Also people are looking for the right person to commit to for the rest of their lives. This happens to some earlier in life than others. Your post reads like it's not that important that you and the person you settle with are compatible. It reads more like settling down is the goal and the person is secondary. You want it to happen now and not when you meet someone suitable.

You both need to be happy to commit to the long term and the only way to find that out is to get into a relationship and see if it's a fit for both. If it's not, it's appropriate that the relationship finishes. A race for marriage and babies regardless of the suitability of a partner is a road to unhappiness and a broken marriage down the line in my opinion.

CaraMay

It's nice to know what you want when you meet someone so, once you've established where the relationship is going (or not), you will be able to decide if it suits you.

You might meet guys a bit older than you who are more interested in meeting someone than guys your own age but at any age it's a lottery. The best thing to do is full your life and a partner, family and kids would then be a nice bonus.

Don't make this the centre of your existence as it will scare off any half normal guy you meet