I'm in a conflicting situation with my boyfriend (sorry it's very long, but urgent)

[I had to re-post this, so I will update/add/change some things]

I’m writing this all out to relive some stress, to get it all out. And I’m posting this just to see what kind of advice I’ll get, and if it’ll help my situation….

To begin with, I have been with my boyfriend for 1 year and about three months now. He is 20, I am 17; He is a freshman in college, I am a senior in high school. For some, this may raise some red flags because he’s older and automatically poses a threat, but I'll tell you right now it works because our mental maturity is about the same level. I’m not sure where to start… It’s hard to put it all into words—I worry it won’t sound right or will be misinterpreted—so bear with me if the things I explain sound unclear and all over the place, I’ll do my best to clarify.

I guess something that would probably be useful to mention, though, before I get into the details, is that my boyfriend and I only knew each other for about a month before declaring “boyfriend and girlfriend.” We knew enough about each other like dislikes and similar interests and found some common ground to be friends. But now, looking back on that, we both agreed it was a hasty or even impulsive decision we made that probably had a larger effect on our relationship dynamic than we give it credit. We were rather shocked that either of us threw ourselves into a relationship so quickly, as we are both rather old-fashioned for our generation, and would typically wait at least several months before becoming an item. Anyways… I felt like that detail would be worth mentioning.

Another thing is that we are pretty serious about our relationship. No, we don’t believe/rely on a future where we picture ourselves as husband and wife, but we have talked about those things, and more. We believe it is plausible that we could end up together, in the very distant future, however, by our own will, determination, loyalty, and of course love (we truly love each other a lot).

With those things in mind, I’ll continue onto what I really want to talk about.

As of the past week, it’s been especially complicated. We’re both realizing things about our relationship and questioning it. For example, we had a conversation over phone recently. He brought up how I’m not the same as I was—I’m quiet, sullen more often. This is because of college applications, school, etc, that stresses me out half the time. He knows this, I’ve told him. But still he feels like something’s up. By the end of the night, we discovered it was quite a few things… Personality-wise, we are similar. We get along and genuinely enjoy each other's company. But when it comes to how we mentally process certain things, we can be drastically different. This further effects how we communicate (or lack of communication… I know this too, it’s something we’re both working on). We also argue… over small things. Just small peeves we have, which is also a struggle because a lot of times we share the same faults. For the longest time I kind of shrugged this off, thinking it was no big deal, but these small petty arguments can make our relationship feel too up-and-down sometimes… It’s hard to explain, but maybe you get my drift (to be honest I’m kind of fuzzy on the details, I got pretty emotional/weepy because it kind of seemed like he was on the brink of breaking up with me [will explain] so that wasn’t very pleasant and the brain naturally doesn’t want to remember displeasing things so I’m trying to force myself to remember everything accurately). And one of the main things that really got me thinking was that sometimes he feels like we’re not a perfect match, like there’s someone still out there waiting for me who can truly understand me. Though we do share a lot in common character-wise, there have been plenty of times where we differ and really contrast each other. Like I said, even I’ve noticed that too, but I also shrugged that away thinking it was no big deal. There were probably some smaller points too, but I can’t remember.

I’ll just take this moment, though, to pause here before I tell what happens the next day and explain what I was thinking and where my dilemma lies. By this point, I was pretty distressed. I hadn’t realized the things I had been shrugging off were what I should have been paying attention to. I had also been shrugging away my feelings of doubt between us. Err, not necessarily doubt, but just “what if” questions that were shrugged away because the answer to every one, in my mind, was “oh well, I have a boyfriend, I shouldn’t think that.” But I had thought, what would it be like to date someone closer to my age… someone taller and stronger, who can play guitar and sing and write poetry, be serious and funny-- like I had always wanted, someone who could understand and connect me just like my best friend of 13 years can. I don’t mean to sound superficial, or stingy on who I would date. I just thought I would date someone more like me. I just kind of thought “what if I was single? Could I find someone who could make me happier, who would be a better match than me?” I know all this sounds terrible, like I’m not happy or satisfied with my boyfriend. But that’s where I am conflicted. I really do effing love my boyfriend. Even though we can be very different, we still have a special connection and can make me genuinely happy like no one else can. [just a side note, physical pleasure is not involved in this- we are both virgins and haven’t done anything really besides kissing or feeling up, so our relationship isn't built on that]. To be honest, the good things we have outweigh the differences or “the bad” in the relationship.

The next day, he explained what an idiot he was for psyching me out like that and felt terrible for making me upset. He said he was just feeling very unhappy and frustrated because for the past 4 months or so away from me at his college and wanted to communicate to me how he was feeling (we had had other conversations about how difficult it is to make things work sometimes, but this specific recent conversation really struck some chords to make us think). It’s not really long distance. He’s an hour and a half away, which of course is not that far compared to true long distance relationships, but I do not see him too often. Usually every three weeks we can plan a day where he can visit me. So, it can still be really hard (perhaps more difficult for him than for me because he really needs that instant-connection with his significant other—something that he feels he has been lacking with me). Therein lies another conflict- after all I had pondered and questioned I thought maybe I’m over-thinking this. No, the conversation was not wasted. We knew that though he did rant a little, the things we talked about were valid and reasonable things to think about.

So I kind of came to the conclusion that no, I’m not going to break up with him or anything like that. At least, I don't want to. We've put so much into our relationship. A break- maybe- just so that we can focus on ourselves and not spend so much time trying to catch each other at a good time for a phone call and just take care of ourselves with so much going on. Not every relationship (romantic or not) is perfect, I definitely know and understand that. And I’m not saying he’s “the one” or anything like that. We’re young. Life happens- who knows what will happen. But like I said earlier, we are more than willing to try to make things work and we think it’s possible for us to be together for a long time. That being said, I know and have heard of plenty of couples that were together for years and years before marriage. So a part of me thinks, it’s only realistic that they, too, had doubts and questions about their relationship. I’m not alone, and we’re all only human. There’s always going to be ups and downs. Plus, I think a huge factor in our relationship progress is because we’re not around each other all the time. In order for us to achieve that connection as a true couple, we’d have to see each other on the daily to truly know each other (and again, I also blame the fact that we became an item too soon before really understanding each other).

I also asked my very good friend, the one who’s known me for 13 years, about her view on all this. She retold her sister’s wedding story to me: Her sister dated a guy in high school for a while. But when college came around, she would be going out of the country and her and the guy were kind of going in different directions. She knew what she wanted to do with her life, but the guy wasn’t as mature and was kind of lost. So they split up. During that time, the guy eventually learned to do things without depending on her—and he matured from this and got his life together. In the meantime, though, she would date guys here and there that weren’t all that great, but she never forgot that one guy. Years later, after a few boyfriends had passed and such, they reconnected and now they’re married and very much a team as she is helping him with his education and he is supporting her.
My friend told me this story, not to apply it to my situation because it is different from her sister’s story, but to provide a different perspective. Maybe even a more realistic one…
I guess a part of me just worries that, if I were to break off the relationship with my boyfriend, would he find someone else? Or rather- would he actually want to? Would I want to? If we did split, would we rely on the distant future and cross our fingers that we’d cross paths again and marry like my best friend’s sister and husband did? – That would be silly to hope for. I’m a romantic, but can think realistically enough to keep myself on my feet. I’m a balance between the two.. Still, it's hard. Again, I know life isn't perfect and hey maybe we will have to let go of each other. It breaks my heart at the thought of him loving someone else.

It would take oodles of time to explain every aspect of our relationship in great detail for strangers to understand so I had to condense and be very direct with my situation, but please consider that though I am young, I am mature and have given these things (and so much more) a lot of thought and I’d like to be taken seriously. You may not have every single detail of my life, or his, of what makes us work, but I hope you trust my judgment.

I'd like to add some new info from another conversation my boyfriend and I had last night as we were trying to figure things out: He feels we got in the relationship too fast, fell in love too fast, and now he doesn't really know himself or know what to think anymore- all he knows is that he loves me so much and never wants to lose me. And I agree with almost all of that. But we don't know what to do from there.

On one hand, we want to break up, but just can't bring ourselves to do it. Or at least, I would want to break up. Not because I don't love him, but because he says he doesn't really know who he is anymore and to me that's not okay. That means he's not happy. It wouldn't be fair for me to continue the relationship. A break-up would help only because then he could focus on himself and find himself again. And if that means he would find someone else, then that might just be something I have to face. I just want the best for him and want him to be happy. I think he would be able to find someone else if we don't work out. We are both very likable people, we make friends fairly easily. It'd be easier for me, though, because I'm a well-rounded person and like a lot of everything and have opinions, whereas he is a bit more rigid and often keeps to himself when it comes to having to form an opinion or think critically. But for both of us, it's hard to tell if someone has a romantic interest in us since we're friendly and kind to a lot of people. So I know in that sense, we aren't doomed.

On the other hand, I don't want to break up just because things get hard. I think a lot of the problem stems from the relationship-distance. And even though we both want to break it off, he says that would just make things worse for us and we'd be more unhappy-- and I kind of agree with this. Plus there's always the alternative of taking a break. I just don't know. 50% of me wants to break up, the other half doesn't. 40% of us is different, 60% is similar... or is it the other way around I'm not sure.

Also, I have the tiniest slight crush (not even a crush, just a liking, really) on this guy who I have two periods with, plus we occasionally play volleyball with me and a bunch of our friends. I don't even know him that well- we just joke and get along well, but I don't know too much about his interests or things like that. I just think, hey if I were single he'd be a potential "suitor," I'd have an interest to get to know him better. That's why I just call it a liking, not a crush. Still, though, I worry that something like that could grow and it would be because my relationship with my boyfriend is really going south and I just don't know it yet...

I’m not sure if there’s a specific question I would ask- maybe, am I over-reacting? Worrying too much? I’m just kind of in a fuzz about all of this still. I’d love to hear your advice, or just about relationships in general. I know this is lengthy, thank you for reading. I hope all this made a bit of sense. If not, please let me know if I can provide any more clarification. Again, I'm sorry for how long this is. I just feel like this situation has so many components to it and I wanted to explain everything thoroughly so it'd be easy to understand... and it also helps me to write things out so I, myself, can understand and sort things out.