Ending a long term relationship
I'm currently living with my girlfriend of 7+ years.
I'm at the stage where I'm almost 30 and I'm feeling the relationship isn't going in the right direction. I'm thinking about the years to come and have become concerned that my girlfriend isn't a good match.
Where things are now:
Over the past year, my girlfriend has stressed she wanted commitment from me. In her case, commitment means that she wants me to buy a house as we currently rent.
We have a small deposit saved but it's not enough to buy a place of our own. I have a good income working for myself - the problem is that banks are not too interested in lending me the money I'd need to buy a nice place unless I wait a couple more years to ensure my income is stable over the long term. Being realistic, I can't look at getting a house for 2-3 more years. My girlfriend works fulltime too but her income won't satisfy the banks terms either.
I'm at the stage where I want to consider starting a family. My girlfriend says she won't have children with me unless we own our own house. Even then, she says she'd have to settle in the house for at least a year before she'd consider having a child. To add more stress to the relationship, she says that she's not willing to have children beyond age 35. That's only 4 years away.
I offered to marry her but she says I can't offer a house, so we can't look at getting married until later.
I feel like in the next few years, I'm setting myself up for a failure. I don't see us being able to buy a house in time for us to move in, live in it for 1 year and then give us enough time to have a child before she is 35.
I get the feeling she really is not that keen on children anyway and this is just a setup, so we buy a house and then it'll be "too late" to have children. When we first started going out, she was not keen at all for children. I told her I couldn't go out with someone who didn't want children, so she told me later she thought it would be ok later in life once she'd settled down.
I've talked about this with my girlfriend and she seems to think I should just save harder, work harder and be more dedicated to her way of thinking. To make matters worse, she wants me to travel with her for a little bit which will eat into our deposit on the house.
It's got to the point where I've suffered depression and have looked at throwing in the towel. I feel like I want someone more spontaneous and flexible. My current girlfriend is so rigid that we have to work to our life goals her way. I'd rather meet someone who's got similar goals but doesn't feel the need to have a schedule or a deadline for everything.
Overall, the other aspects of our relationship are not that great. We don't have sex that often. We have started arguing more and more over the past year as it's obvious we want different things.
I feel it's so hard to break up after so long. Part of me thinks I should just give in and work toward the house, then hope the children will come along. The downside is, I know I won't live a happy life without children and if my girlfriend doesn't also feel this strong desire for children, then maybe she is just not the right one?
I'm always concerned if I throw this away, I'll hurt her badly and she'll never forgive me. I like her a a lot but it's come to the point where it seems more like a good friendship than a long term romance.
