Am I moronic for breaking up with my gf to travel?
She wants to move out of our city and settle down in Santa Barbara, but that’s going to suck up a huge chunk of my savings while I find work. It’s a big priority of mine and I’ve finally saved enough to fund at least a years worth of world travel. She has no interest in it.
I genuinely do love her and don’t want to break up with her, it’s a tough choice either way. To settle down and hope to get away maybe once a year for a week - but with someone who loves me, or to see the world and adventure - but alone, and have to find someone new upon my return home. I feel as though I’ll resent her eventually if I don’t do this.
We’ve been dating for about 8 months and have always talked about travel but now she’s adamant that she’s ready to leave within the next few weeks.
Idk guys. What would you do? I’ve never been out of the U.S. but have always wanted to. I’m 25 btw.
 It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
 |
It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
Any b***h who's dumb enough to fall for the Cali meme ain't worth it
But talk to her like an adult first
We are born and raised in California. We already live here, just in a shitty (but cheap) part.
Just travel for a few months and then return to her. If she won't wait for you then she doesn't care about you anyway.
Where do you live now? Santa Barbara is really expensive. I went to school there. Even for California it's highly expensive. It's a beautiful place and I'd love to live there but hard to justify due to the cost.
But as others have said, maybe travel for a few months and then go back. Travel fatigue is real and after a few months you might want to go back. But this is only from my experience of traveling for 2 months at a time.
Santa Barbara has the worst cost of living to income ratio in the entire country. There's no jobs in the central California coast except for thing like working in a restaurant. The only really good jobs are university professors. But the area is extremely expensive and full of idle rich people.. It is probably the prettiest and least nogged part of California with the best climate too.
Fresno
>settle down in Santa Barbara, but that’s going to suck up a huge chunk of my savings while I find work.
Why the frick would anybody do that
Do you guys split expenses or are paying for everything (or most of it)?
DTB
You're from the US so you'll never have a happy relationship anyway. Do it exactly like this or you'll be wasting time and get depression.
>Break up with her
>a proper breakup where you don't see or talk to her again
>Five months later when you have finally gotten over that boring b***h completely, start preparing your travels
>during all this time avoid any attempts from her to get back or go together with you if they happen (important, will just make things worse)
>finally travel
>after 1 month traveling you will have met couples that are also traveling and realize how amazing it feels to travel alone instead of with an American woman
>get back to the shithole that is the US whenever you get tired of travelling (be it 4 months or 2 years)
>find another useless American woman to date and never marry
You will regret it if you don't do exactly this. Never travel with a woman that does not want to travel or is not used to it. If you want to travel yourself, do not give it away just for one prostitute, you do not realise right now how replaceable they are. You only get one chance at life, and nobody knows if travelling the way you can today will be possible in 15 years. You blink and you'll be 30.
t. Voice of experience
What are her arguments for moving to Santa Barbara?
Everyone is different, but I would feel really lonely if I would be traveling alone for weeks. At least find some friend to go with. It's a known issue in digital nomad community - unless you can easily make friends on the way, you will feel really isolated, sad and wanting to get home to some stable place with "your" people surrounding you. At your place I would not do it - I would have issues making human connections in the places I travel too, so I would be miserable.
It's the sacrifice you must make for adventure, you'll come back cooler.
Well you clearly have different goals you really need to come to kind of compromise if this is a healthy relationship
Santa Barbara is very expensive and traveling the world is an exciting goal how much of it do you need to see right now? I'm not saying don't travel at just maybe go a few places it's more difficult to replace a good woman than it is to travel the world
There's more jobs and housing in LA or San Diego
No, it is guaranteed you'd wind up resenting her for you not traveling and it would never go away, then when it finally falls apart, hopefully sooner rather than later, you will be pissed at yourself for not having seen it coming
I agree with other posters that you’re going to need to find compromise somewhere if you do indeed want to stay with this woman.
I’m not going to condemn anybody, or call anyone a moron, but I will say that settling down together in a very expensive new city after being together for less than a year sounds quite extreme to me. It’s a massive and expensive life change for both of you (would be even if you both had jobs lined up there), and a real commitment. Adding to this the fact that among your first reactions to your situation is to consider breaking up emphasizes to me that, at least right now, you and she are on very different pages. Whether you intend to travel or not, the two of you have a lot of serious talking to do about what you want from each other and from life.
I can’t help but wonder if the reason you’ve contemplated splitting up over travel might have as much to do with the fact that you’re just not ready to settle down with your girlfriend under any circumstances.
Anyhow, I’m old and long married, but I essentially settled down young. Although we were on-again, off-again for several years, and even long-distance for a couple of stretches (for some of which I was living abroad), I married my college girlfriend, whom I met when she was seventeen and I was barely nineteen. It has been compromise at every turn.
In our case, not settling down immediately, and even, believe it or not, splitting up for a while, was great for our relationship in the long-term. We did our own things, we tried not being together, and arrived at the mutual conclusion that we preferred being together in the end. Perhaps a similar path can be found for the two of you. Or not.
Anyway, the tldr is that I do think it would be kind of dumb if you broke up with the love of your life just to take a trip. But I also suspect that travel isn’t the only reason you are considering it, and you should work out what all the other reasons might be, too.
This post is off-topic and is asking for relationship advice on a travel board.