Am I overthinking things?

[monkey80]

I have been with my present girlfriend for over 6 months now. The relationship has been absolutely awesome up to this point and I really do see myself spending my life with this woman. She is 24 and trying to establish a fulltime career for herself, I am almost 34 and have long established mine.

My previous relationships never felt like those were longterm commitments. Sure those relationships had their moments, but nothing comes close to how this woman makes me feel and, dare I say, how I make her feel. She is very different in almost everyway imaginable.

The thing is, I think I try too hard sometimes. I am putting so much effort into the relationship to try and continue to impress her. The first few months I was coming up with different places to go visit and have fun with her... but now I feel like I am running out of ideas and the relationship might fizzle a bit without fresh places to go and visit etc. She also has come up with places for us to see and visit and has taken me to do some amazing things I had very little time for before. Now I make the time as much as possible, whenever possible, in order to not just let life pass me by... especially with her.

She came to watch me run a 5k the other day. I didn't think she had come initially when I finished the race. I started to walk out of the park and she text me asking if I had finished yet. I replied yes and she said she "had not seen me yet..." a bit of messing about ensued over the phone when I called her and we met up to go home together. I was a bit silly when talking on the phone as she cracked a joke that she was going home and I took it literally. When we met up she could see I was a little affected by that even though she had every intention of waiting for me.

She put any plans on hold to come and see me run. She even turned up with a headache and brought me a water/energy drink... that should say alot about her devotion to me but sometimes I feel she does it out of obligation? if that makes sense. Mainly because of her nature and when she makes plans to visit people and friends.

I have put the thought into her head about moving in together when the time is right but have not discussed it further since I mentioned it a couple of weeks back.

Here is the thing. We have not slept together (though we have shared the same bed whilst on holiday for a week recently - which got extremely intimate) and we have yet to go back to eachothers places to stay. This is partly my hang-up in wanting to impress her with my accomodation arrangements and I know that although she wants me to stop by hers, she is embarrassed about her living space being quite small and that she also has her younger brother randomly pop round on occasion. Her place incidentally is on my route to/from work everyday.

We are in love but there are still these hang-ups and I think it is now a bigger deal having been together this length of time than say early on in the relationship when things were quite new and fresh.

Now I feel like we are approaching the part of the relationship where a few deal breakers are due to come along and whether we will stay together once we explore these choices and sacrifices we need to make together as a couple.

This scares me... alot, because I feel that she is the one.

And advice appreciated.

Thanks.

[TablesandChairs]

You seem concerned with some strange things for a man your age who I assume has at least some relationship experience.

Going on fun outings is a good was to initiate a relationship and I think it's good for couples to have a sort of on-going curiousity to try/do/see/experience new things together...but does that make a good, solid relationship? No. I'm the happiest when I'm at home, with my partner, watching TV or just doing nothing together...and we're a pretty active couple, we travel, we rock-climb...but there's absolutely no expectation to do something amazing every single weekend, nor would I think 'Oh my God, our relationship is going to die because we didn't do something grandiose for a few weeks'.

If you don't experience some sort of domesticity together, then you don't know how the relationship will progress; going on fun dates doesn't give you the whole picture. You need to know what it's going to be like just normally, day-to-day and honestly, if she's the right one, it's those average days you'll appreciate the most.

That said, there's a pretty large age gap - not sure if you're over-compensating for it or not. I'm 30 - the person I was at 24 was someone very different...a few years makes a lot of difference during that time.

[lovemypup87]

Ok, this advice is coming from a 26 year old chick: stop over analyzing. It sounds like you show her that you care. And make *the* move on her already, get a room for a night, put a bunch of flowers everywhere and.........(she's probably wondering why you haven't wanted physical intimacy yet....) go for it. Just stop over analyzing...seriously :-)

[Romeo13]

I agree with lovemypup87. This must literally be the only thing on her mind. Just do it.

[CrasherRob8]

I agree with the others. You are way over analyzing everything. You have put her on a pedestal already by saying she is "The One" so early. Rather than putting her there early and trying to make everything "perfect", just enjoy the moment and have fun with her.

[monkey80]

I guess it would be that easy if I had not fallen for her so hard to be honest.

I'm doing everything I can to try and just ride the wave and go with the flow with this one, but that is easier said than done when you connect with somebody so well and all you want to do is just spend time with them as much as possible. Of course I am just trying to be natural and not put her on too high a pedestal, but isn't it also just a case of 'you know, when you know?'.