Search Results: perfect boyfriend relationships

Hello everyone, I need some advice.

A few days ago I had an argument with my boyfriend. We’ve been together for about a year and four months. The issue started because I’ve been feeling emotionally tired lately. His dad has been very sick in the hospital for months, so he’s been understandably depressed and wanting to go out more to clear his mind. I care about him a lot, but my household is very strict. Even though I’m 20, I’m not really allowed to go out often or come home late, so it’s been hard to balance everything.

During the argument I said I thought we should break up because I felt overwhelmed. I called my sister to pick me up from his house. While she was waiting outside she started calling me repeatedly and assumed something bad was happening, even though I texted her that everything was fine and I was just getting my things.

When I came out she went inside and started yelling at my boyfriend, accusing him of things that weren’t true and saying she didn’t want him near me again. After that my mom got involved and believed something serious had happened. Now both my mom and sister think he’s bad for me and they pressured me to break up with him.

The problem is that I still love him and our relationship was generally happy. He’s not perfect, but he’s never hurt me. Now I feel stuck because if I stay with him my family gets extremely angry, but breaking up feels like I’m ending something good because of other people.

I love my family and I love him, and I feel like I’m being forced to choose between them. What would you do in this situation?

I have two friends: both are 40, have chosen the single life for years. One is a guy, he was friends with a girl in her early 30’s for a year and dated her casually for a year before he finally decided she was the one and asked her to be his girlfriend. After one year of seriously dating, he proposed marriage at Christmas. They married two months later. He’s a guy, we’ll call him Ryan. Him taking his time is fine.

The other friend is a woman (we’ll call her Tara), she’s been “seeing” a guy (also 40) for at least 9 months. They haven’t labeled it yet, every time I ask her when she’s labeling the relationship she always says “we’re taking our time with it, keeping it casual and just being friends first”. I love Tara, but she’s out of her freakin mind. I demanded my boyfriend to define the relationship after 5 months. Tara does want this guy, but she just lives in her own little shell and won’t demand what she wants. She just sits back lets things happen and says she wants him to define it in his own time (I told her drop his ass if he doesn’t define it at the end of this month).

It’s fine that Ryan took his time. He’s a guy and it’s more socially accepted for him to put off relationships and marriage. For women I don’t understand it though. I feel like when we go that route, we get used, we get our time wasted and we get hurt. I think Tara is making a huge mistake, but my boyfriend says she’s not. What if she defines the relationship and then decides she doesn’t like him after all (that’s his logic). Maybe because I’m also dying to matchmake her and there’s a friend of my bf’s who I want her to meet (because he’s dying to date her and I think they’re perfect for each other).

I’m 40, she’s 39 and both of us spent way too much time navigating the dating world. We’ve both been told since turning 30 to date men 10 to 20 years older. I’ve been more open to it than she was. She’s still not open to it. She’s really pretty so her looks aren’t an issue, but she gets passed over and dumped CONSTANTLY by men our age for younger women and the last time really hurt her.

I started dating a man age 54 last year and have never been happier, and dating him taught me two things: 1.) it’s really true that men like to be a little bit older than their women and 2.) men need to feel lucky to have a woman in order for a relationship to work (my boyfriend and I both know how lucky we are to have each other, but he courted and pursued me like no man my own age ever did). My friend has not accepted this yet, and it’s such a shame because my boyfriend has a friend who is perfect for her. The guy met her one time and has been begging me ever since to set him up with her and he’s been pursuing her nonstop but she won’t give him a chance just because he’s 60. She says the age gap is too big and she won’t date him because he’s 20 years older even though he treats women really well, can give her the life and love she deserves and can also respect all of the wonderful qualities that she has to offer.

That man has outright told me that he wants someone our age. How can I make her see that women our age are better off with men that age?

She said the oldest she’ll date is 50.

Am I right when I say middle aged women in their late 30’s should be dating men in their late 50’s/early 60’s? Is she right that the age gap is too big?