It takes a lot for two people to stay together forever. I’ve fallen in love multiple times in my life, but I have yet to find someone I want to be with for the rest of my life… and the truth is, I’m not sure I ever will. Don’t take it personally — it’s not that I don’t love you, but this is why I doubt I’ll ever want to marry you:
- It takes more than love to make me want forever. It would be nice if it was all so simple as “happily ever after”, but it’s not. Falling in love is relatively easy; building and maintaining a healthy relationship is a whole different story. There are a lot of factors that come into play if I’m deciding to spend the rest of my life with someone.
- We have to have the same goals. I may love a guy, but do we feel the same way about kids? Where we want to live? How we want to run our lives? What we see for our futures? These and so many other questions can spell the death of a relationship. I hope to one day meet the right guy who makes all these decisions easy. As of now, incompatibilities in these areas have been the cause of all my breakups.
- I still have so much to do. I’m just not the settling down type of girl. Maybe that’ll change someday, but I have a feeling it won’t be anytime soon. I want a guy who wants the same things I do: travel, adventure, novelty and exploration. I don’t want to be tied down to some staid, humdrum existence.
- I don’t know what I want yet. It’s really hard to be in a committed relationship with someone who wants to settle down someday when you can’t tell them how you feel about it. I’m absolutely not of that mindset right now, but I might be someday. I need to figure out what I’m looking for in a relationship before making any big commitments with a guy.
- Love is a lot easier than a committed partnership. Anyone can be in love, no matter how impractical or temporary. It’s once you get into commitment issues that everything gets messy. I’m bad at compromise, and I get resentful easily. I clearly haven’t found the right guy yet, but part of me wonders if I’ll ever be ready to stick with one man without wondering who else is out there.
- I like my independence. I’m used to it, and it’ll be damn difficult to give up if I ever do. I can love the crap out of a guy, but I still want him to let me have my space. I don’t want to live together — I like sleeping alone too much. I’m not nearly ready to face the idea of giving all that up for a guy.
- I’m always on the move. If “settling down” actually means “a life of constant travel and exploration” to a man, I might be able to deal with that. Otherwise, I’m not sure I can. I’ve spent too much of my life not doing what I want to do. Now I crave everything I’ve never experienced, and settling down doesn’t fit into that plan very well.
- Love has many different forms. There’s youthful, idealistic love. There’s passionate love, based primarily around physical chemistry. There’s love that’s built around a mental and emotional connection but lacks sexual connection. There’s comfortable love that doesn’t challenge or inspire. There are endless forms of love, but it takes something truly rare and special to be conducive to a lifelong commitment.
- I’m too young to settle down. Fine — I’m not that young, but that’s how I feel. I’ve been so serious my whole life. I’ve had a lot of unhappy long-term relationships that should never have even started. I’m just now finally learning to love myself and be happy alone. I don’t want to give that up right away just because I fall for some guy.
- I’m willing to break up if you feel differently. Trust me: you won’t be the man who tames me. I’m not just waiting for my heart to be captured by the right person. If a guy can’t give me the autonomy and independence I want, I won’t stay with him. I understand my fear of forever isn’t shared by everyone, and I understand if you want to end things so you don’t get hurt. But don’t expect me to change my mind anytime soon.
